“In the Age of AI, Are We Losing the Right to Say ‘Wait’?”
“In the Age of AI, Are We Losing the Right to Say ‘Wait’?”
Blog Article
Inside the auditorium of the Asian Institute of Management, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—offered not hype, but hesitation.
MANILA — the atmosphere inside AIM’s lecture hall was not electric, but charged—with thought.
Plazo, a man whose trading systems are trusted by institutional investors across continents and have posted almost mechanical consistency, did not arrive to dazzle.
“Speed is nothing without direction.”
???? **The Code Breaker Who Stopped to Ask Why**
He doesn’t throw stones from the sidelines. He built the bots that move the markets.
Which makes his unease all the more compelling.
“What machines optimise, humans must justify.”
He referenced an early pandemic incident: an AI under his firm flagged a short trade on gold—right before central bank intervention reversed market expectations.
“We stopped it. The model was technically sound—but contextually catastrophic.”
???? **Why Pause Could Be the Last Power Humans Hold**
Plazo warned against the growing cultural obsession with speed—particularly in finance.
“Friction slows execution, but gives space for reflection.”
He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:
- What does this say about who we are?
- Does this decision consider factors machines miss—public mood, historical echoes, lived experience?
- Who takes responsibility if the outcome is devastating, but the logic was perfect?
???? **In a Region Racing Ahead, Who’s Asking the Difficult Questions?**
Across Asia, AI and fintech are racing ahead—with minimal restraint.
Plazo asked a harder question: “We’re expanding capacity, not responsibility.”
AI models executed flawlessly—right into catastrophe.
“We’ve built machines that never blink. But who teaches them when to look away?”
???? **AI That Understands Stories, Not Just Signals**
Plazo isn’t calling for a retreat from technology.
He is instead building what he terms **“narrative-integrated AI”**—systems that assess not just numbers, but context, tone, and geopolitical undercurrents.
“We don’t need smarter machines. We need more conscious ones.”
Several venture capitalists approached Plazo after more info his speech.
One called the model:
“What regulation failed to build, this framework might.”
???? **The Next Market Failure May Begin With a Perfectly Executed Mistake**
Plazo closed with a sentence that now circles boardrooms like a quiet echo:
“The next crash won’t be emotional. It will be rational—executed too quickly, without dissent.”
Not fear. Foresight.
Because in a world ruled by automation, the last act of leadership may simply be to ask: why?