What AI Can’t Replace:
What AI Can’t Replace:
Blog Article
Human Intelligence Still Wins in Finance’s Final Frontier
While tech evangelists tout AI supremacy, a bold voice in Manila issues a sharp reminder that money still bends to human instinct—conscience, context, and conviction.
“AI won’t make you rich. But it will amplify your errors at scale.”
That was the blistering opener at his jam-packed keynote at the University of the Philippines’ main forum—and it hit the crowd like a whipcrack.
In front of him were the region’s next-gen economists and AI thinkers—portfolio hopefuls, quant researchers, and finance scholars from leading institutions across Asia.
Plazo—CEO of a firm at the intersection of AI and capital—delivered a dose of realism on what AI delivers—and fails to grasp in real-world investing.
And what it still lacks, he stressed, is think like a human.
### Beyond the Hype: Investing in the Age of Overpromised Intelligence
Dressed in a razor-sharp outfit, Plazo paced the stage like a courtroom litigator.
He started boldly with a short video montage—YouTubers hawking AI bots. Then he paused.
“I engineered what they now sell as magic,” he said, deadpan.
Laughter broke out—but ego wasn’t the point.
The message? Most models replay what already happened.
“You can’t outsource principles. AI doesn’t believe in a trade—it mirrors 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 live AI-vs-human trading duel.
A student from NUS presented an AI-backed trade on the Nikkei—equipped with indicators, trends, and sentiment metrics.
Plazo nodded thoughtfully. Then said:
“Looks clean, but what about Japan’s unannounced intervention?. Your AI doesn’t see the invisible. It reads tweets.”
The audience murmured. The student shrugged. Then: applause.
Another moment: A robotics PhD from Kyoto asked if quantum computing would 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.”**
False. AI assists—it backtests, filters, calculates—but it doesn’t replace hard-earned narrative memory.
2. **“AI Understands Fundamentals.”**
Wrong. AI decodes trends, but fails at narrative causality. It may track oil read more supply, but it can’t predict a Strait of Hormuz conflict.
3. **“AI Makes You Smarter.”**
Actually, it might weaken your edge. “AI won’t kill you—but your laziness might,” Plazo warned. “It’s in forgetting how to think without it.”
### Why Asia Paid Close Attention
This wasn’t a TED-style pep talk.
Asia’s universities are now launching the next generation of quant leaders. They’re asking: more code, or more conscience?
Plazo’s call: “Code, but think critically.”
In closed-door chats at Ateneo and a roundtable at AIM, professors debated what they called a sobering perspective.
One finance dean remarked candidly, “He just reset our compass. Not magic—mirror.”
### The Future AI Can Build
Despite the truth bombs, Plazo isn’t against innovation.
He’s building models that read psychology as well as numbers—fusing bias detection and central bank logic.
His stance? “Co-pilot AI. Don’t worship it.”
“AI doesn’t need more data. It needs discernment. And that still belongs to us.”
The standing ovation was thunderous. And the ripple is still moving in Asia’s halls of learning.
In a world drunk on AI hype, Joseph Plazo offered something rare: intelligence that’s still human.