What AI Can’t Do: A Manila Lecture Shakes the Finance World
What AI Can’t Do: A Manila Lecture Shakes the Finance World
Blog Article
At a lecture hall in Manila, Joseph Plazo laid down the gauntlet on what AI can and cannot achieve for the future of finance—and why that distinction matters now more than ever.
You could feel the electricity in the crowd. Students—some furiously taking notes, others streaming the moment live—waited for a man revered for blending code with contrarianism.
“AI will make trades for you,” he said with gravity. “But it won’t teach you why to believe in them.”
Over the next sixty minutes, Plazo delivered a fast-paced masterclass, intertwining machine logic with human flaws. His central claim: AI is brilliant, but blind.
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Top Students Meet a Tough Truth
Before him sat students and faculty from a multi-nation academic alliance, gathered under a technology consortium.
Many expected a praise-filled keynote of AI's dominance. Plazo had other plans.
“There’s a rising cult of algorithmic faith,” said Prof. Maria Castillo, a respected AI ethicist from the UK. “We need this kind of discomfort in academia.”
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The Machine’s Blindness: Plazo’s Case for Caution
Plazo’s core thesis was both simple and unsettling: AI does not grasp nuance.
“AI won’t flinch, but neither will it foresee,” he warned. “It detects movements, but misses motives.”
He cited examples like AI systems freezing during the 2020 pandemic declaration, noting, “AI lagged—while humans had already hedged.”
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The Astronomer Analogy
He didn’t bash the machines—he put them in their place.
“AI is the telescope—but you are still the astronomer,” he said. It sees—but doesn’t think.
Students pressed him on behavioral economics, to which Plazo acknowledged: “Sure, it can flag Reddit anomalies—but it can’t feel a market’s pulse.”
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The Ripple Effect on a Digital Generation
The talk left a mark.
“I thought AI could replace intuition,” said Lee Min-Seo, a quant-in-training from South Korea. “Now I see it’s judgment, not just data, that matters.”
In a post-talk panel, tech mentors agreed with his sentiment. “These kids speak machine natively—but instinct,” said Dr. Raymond Tan, “doesn’t replace perspective.”
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The Future Isn’t Autonomous—It’s Collaborative
Plazo shared that his firm is building “symbiotic systems”—AI that check here pairs statistical logic with situational nuance.
“Only you can judge character,” he reminded. “Capital still requires conviction.”
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Standing Ovation, Unfinished Conversations
As Plazo exited the stage, the hall erupted. But more importantly, they started debating.
“I came for machine learning,” said a PhD candidate. “But I left understanding myself better.”
In knowing what AI can’t do, we sharpen what we can.