A Wake-Up Call from Manila’s Leading AI Strategist

In an age of algorithmic promises, a bold voice in Southeast Asia issues a sharp reminder what money still listens to—judgment, ethics, and gut.

“Artificial intelligence won’t hand you fortune. But it will accelerate your losses.”

That was Joseph Plazo’s unapologetic opener at his overflowing keynote at the University of the Philippines’ amphitheater—and it landed like a thunderclap.

Before him were hundreds of future fund managers and technologists—portfolio hopefuls, quant researchers, and finance scholars from Asia’s top universities.

Plazo—a pioneer in intelligent trading systems—delivered a roadmap on what AI offers—and where it falls short in live-market investing.

And what it misses, he stressed, is replace your instinct.

### Beyond the Hype: Investing in the Age of Overpromised Intelligence

Dressed in a bespoke ensemble, Plazo commanded the stage with surgical precision.

He started boldly with a short video montage—social media influencers promising 90% win rates. Then he paused.

“I engineered what they now sell as magic,” he said, deadpan.

The crowd chuckled—but ego wasn’t the point.

The message? Most models replay what already happened.

“You can’t outsource conviction. AI doesn’t feel in a trade—it echoes what already happened.”

“When war erupts, when Powell slips during a Fed announcement, when a bank tumbles before markets open—AI doesn’t notice. We do.”

### The Students Who Challenged Him—and Got Schooled

The jaw-dropper? A showdown between machine and instinct.

A student from NUS presented an AI-backed trade on the Nikkei—equipped with indicators, trends, and sentiment metrics.

Plazo eyed it. Then said:

“Looks clean, but what about Japan’s unannounced intervention?. Your AI doesn’t see the invisible. It reads tweets.”

The audience shifted. The student shrugged. Then: applause.

Another moment: A robotics PhD from Kyoto asked if quantum computing would more info render all current models useless.

Plazo’s answer? “Yes—and no. Infinite processing won’t fix human incentives. Train an AI on fear, and it’ll become a chaos machine.”

### The Three Myths Plazo Shattered in 45 Minutes

1. **“AI Will Replace Portfolio Managers.”**
Not quite. AI assists—it backtests, filters, calculates—but it doesn’t replace gut instinct.

2. **“AI Understands Fundamentals.”**
Wrong. AI reads tables, but fails at narrative causality. It may model interest rates, but it can’t predict a Strait of Hormuz conflict.

3. **“AI Makes You Smarter.”**
Actually, it might make you duller. “The real risk isn’t AI itself,” Plazo warned. “It’s deskilling ourselves at scale.”

### Why Asia Paid Close Attention

This wasn’t your average AI hype fest.

Asia’s universities are now minting billion-dollar fund builders. They’re asking: more code, or more conscience?

Plazo’s call: “Do both—but lead with the mind.”

In closed-door chats at Ateneo and a roundtable at AIM, professors wrestled with what they called a turning point speech.

One finance dean shared off-record, “This talk shifts the ethical foundation. Not magic—mirror.”

### The Future AI Can Build

Despite the warnings, Plazo isn’t a luddite.

He’s building multi-signal trading engines—that blend intuition cues with algorithmic structure.

His stance? “Let AI drive—but you steer. Don’t go on autopilot.”

“It’s not starving for stats. It’s missing context. And that still can’t be coded.”

The applause echoed across campuses. And that jolt of insight is still shaking up syllabi in Asia’s finance incubators.

In a world drunk on AI hype, he delivered the one thing no model ever could—wisdom.