What AI Can’t Replace:
What AI Can’t Replace:
Blog Article
A Wake-Up Call from Manila’s Leading AI Strategist
While tech evangelists tout AI supremacy, a defiant voice in Manila reminds us that judgment still beats the algorithm—intuition, discipline, and story.
“AI isn’t your golden ticket. But it will make your mistakes faster.”
That was the provocative opener at his standing-room-only keynote at the University of the Philippines’ academic hall—and it landed like a thunderclap.
Before him were hundreds of future fund managers and technologists—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 roadmap on what AI offers—and where it falls short in real-world investing.
And what it misses, he stressed, is replace your instinct.
### Beyond the Hype: Investing in the Age of Overpromised Intelligence
Dressed in a tailored navy suit, Plazo moved like a cross between preacher and prosecutor.
He opened fire with a short video montage—clips of online traders pushing miracle machines. Then he paused.
“I built the system they copied,” he said, matter-of-fact.
Laughter followed—but this wasn’t ego.
The message? Most AI is built on hindsight.
“You can’t outsource guts. AI doesn’t carry skin in a trade—it reacts what already happened.”
“When war unexpectedly explodes, when Powell coughs during a Fed announcement, when a bank implodes overnight—AI stays blind. Humans 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—technically solid, sentiment-scanned, and data-rich.
Plazo nodded thoughtfully. Then said:
“Good. But you missed the BOJ’s stealth bond buy this morning. 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 click here 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 augments—it backtests, filters, calculates—but it doesn’t replace hard-earned narrative memory.
2. **“AI Understands Fundamentals.”**
Wrong. AI decodes trends, but doesn’t grasp geopolitics. It may track oil supply, but it won’t flag a coup in Venezuela.
3. **“AI Makes You Smarter.”**
Actually, it might lure you into dependency. “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 just another keynote.
Asia’s universities are now launching the next generation of quant leaders. They’re asking: more code, or more conscience?
Plazo’s call: “Harness tech, but stay human.”
In closed-door chats at Ateneo and a roundtable at AIM, professors absorbed what they called a sobering perspective.
One finance dean privately told Forbes, “Joseph might have rebooted our entire AI syllabus. Not magic—mirror.”
### The Future AI Can Build
Despite the critique, Plazo isn’t anti-AI.
He’s building multi-signal trading engines—integrating macro signals and crowd psychology.
His stance? “Ride with it. 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 elite universities.
In a world drunk on AI hype, he delivered the one thing no model ever could—wisdom.