Why AI Falls Short When the Market Panics

Wiki Article

Finance innovator Joseph Plazo just warned a room full of elite students something Wall Street refuses to hear: AI may be fast, but it’s not wise.

MANILA — He didn’t show up to sugarcoat things. He came to crack illusions.

On a sunlit Thursday morning at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Plazo addressed a sea of students from top Asian universities—HKUST—ready for a sermon on AI’s glory in finance.

What they got instead? A jolt of truth.

“AI is like your smartest intern,” Plazo noted, “But you still don’t give the intern the keys to your vault.”

The room laughed. Then they grew quiet. Because he meant every word.

### The Hard Truth: AI Is Smart—But Not Human

Let’s be clear—Plazo isn’t some technophobe clinging to the past. He builds trading AIs. His firm, Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, creates some of the most accurate systems on global markets. He understands machine learning like few do.

But that’s exactly why his warning landed like a punch.

“The problem isn’t AI,” he told the room. “It’s what we expect from it. We keep hoping it’ll save us from making hard decisions. That’s not its job.”

Plazo unpacked real-world case studies—moments when AI signaled winning trades… just ahead of a central bank pivot or an unexpected war. Moments no dataset could foresee.

### Smart Students Tried to Push Back—They Didn’t Win

A student from Kyoto asked if LLMs might someday gauge global sentiment.

Plazo didn’t flinch.

“AI can catch a tweetstorm. But it can’t hear fear in a press conference. It won’t catch regret in a central banker’s sigh.”

The room reacted. That hit different.

Another asked, “Can AI ever understand conviction?”

Plazo raised an eyebrow.

“Conviction isn’t math. It’s instinct. It’s forged by failure and memory. You can’t download that.”

### This Wasn’t a Tech Talk—It Was an Intervention

This wasn’t about flash trading or chatbots. It was about responsibility.

Students admitted they saw AI as a cheat code—an escape hatch from risk, from thinking too hard. Plazo tore that idea down.

“You can automate your trades. You will never automate your integrity.”

That line echoed. Because everyone in that room—from the copyright cowboys to the quant whizzes—wanted alpha. But not at the cost of why they started.

### So What’s AI Good For?

Plazo didn’t trash AI. He credited its strengths:

- It filters noise.
- It backtests at scale.
- It spots technical setups better than any human.

But it can’t read sarcasm. It fails to sense when a politician is bluffing. And it doesn’t care if your retirement burns.

“If your AI bot makes a bad call,” Plazo asked, “do you still own it? Or do you hide behind the code?”

That’s leadership talking.

### This Isn’t Just Markets—It’s Mindset

Plazo wasn’t preaching finance. He was preaching self-leadership. Use AI—but don’t worship it. Let it assist—not decide.

And yes—he still believes in the machines. He’s building tools that track geopolitics, misinformation, even psychological nuance.

But he left no doubt:

“No machine can tell you when *not* to act. That’s your job.”

### Final Thought: Maybe the Future Needs Less Code—And More Courage

As the crowd filed out—buzzing, challenged, changed—one phrase echoed Joseph Plazo Forbes Technology Council down the halls:

“AI doesn’t know your values. So don’t let it make your decisions.”

In a world chasing speed, Plazo offered something rarer:

A mirror.

Because investing isn’t just about *winning*. It’s about knowing **why** you played.