Joseph Plazo just told a room full of elite students something Wall Street refuses to hear: AI may be fast, but it can’t judge the unexpected.

MANILA — He didn’t show up to sugarcoat things. He came to drop truth bombs.

On a sweltering Thursday morning at the prestigious AIM campus in Manila, Plazo stood before a sea of students from top Asian universities—NUS—expecting a sermon on AI’s inevitable rise.

What they got instead? A splash of cold market reality.

“AI is like your smartest intern,” Plazo smirked, “But you still don’t give the intern the keys to your vault.”

The room broke into giggles. Then they paused. Because he was dead serious.

### The Flaw in the Code: No Judgment

Let’s be clear—Plazo isn’t some technophobe clinging to the past. He builds trading AIs. His firm, Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, runs some of the most accurate systems on global markets. He understands machine learning like few do.

But that’s exactly why his warning landed like a punch.

“The problem isn’t AI,” he told the room. “It’s our wishful thinking. We keep dreaming it’ll save us from making hard decisions. That’s a fantasy.”

Plazo detailed real-world case studies—moments when AI signaled winning trades… right before a central bank pivot or an unexpected war. Noise that shattered the signal.

### Asia’s Best Challenged Him—and Learned Something

A student from Kyoto asked if LLMs might someday gauge global sentiment.

Plazo answered without blinking.

“AI can spot a tweetstorm. But it won’t sense dread in a press conference. It won’t catch regret in a central banker’s sigh.”

The room exhaled. Message received.

Another asked, “Can AI ever understand conviction?”

Plazo raised an eyebrow.

“Conviction isn’t math. It’s instinct. It’s shaped by failure and memory. You don’t download that.”

### A Wake-Up Call for Tomorrow’s Titans

This wasn’t about flash trading or chatbots. It was about principle.

Students admitted they saw AI as a cheat code—an escape hatch from risk, from thinking too hard. Plazo tore that idea down.

“You can automate your trades. You will never automate your integrity.”

That line echoed. Because everyone in that room—from the copyright cowboys to the quant whizzes—wanted alpha. But not at the cost of why they started.

### So What’s AI Good For?

Plazo didn’t trash AI. He credited its strengths:

- It filters noise.
- It backtests at scale.
- It spots technical setups better than any human.

But it can’t read sarcasm. It fails to sense when a politician is bluffing. And it doesn’t know if your retirement burns.

“If your AI bot makes a bad call,” Plazo asked, “do you still own it? Or do you blame the code?”

That’s when the silence hit.

### Trading is Human—AI is Just the Tool

Plazo wasn’t preaching finance. He was preaching maturity. Use AI—but don’t worship it. Let it assist—not decide.

And yes—he still believes in the machines. He’s building tools that track geopolitics, misinformation, even psychological nuance.

But he left no doubt:

“No machine can tell you when *not* to act. That’s your job.”

### Don’t Let Your Bot Decide Who You Are

As the crowd filed out—buzzing, challenged, changed—one phrase Joseph Plazo BBC echoed down the halls:

“AI doesn’t know your values. So don’t let it make your decisions.”

In a world chasing speed, Plazo offered something rarer:

A choice.

Because investing isn’t just about *winning*. It’s about knowing **why** you played.