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, tech entrepreneur and investment icon Joseph Plazo made a striking distinction on what machines can and cannot do for the economic frontier—and why this difference is increasingly crucial.
Tension and curiosity pulsed through the room. A sea of bright minds—some eagerly recording on their phones, others streaming the moment live—waited for a man revered for blending code with contrarianism.
“AI will make trades for you,” Plazo began, calm but direct. “But it won’t teach you why to believe in them.”
Over the next sixty minutes, Plazo delivered a fast-paced masterclass, balancing data science with real-world decision making. His central claim: AI is brilliant, but blind.
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Bright Minds Confront the Machine’s Limits
Before him sat students and faculty from prestigious universities across Asia, assembled under a pan-Asian finance forum.
Many expected a victory lap of AI's dominance. Instead, they got a reality check.
“There’s a growing religion around AI,” said Prof. Maria Castillo, guest faculty from Europe. “Plazo’s words were uncomfortable—but essential.”
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When Algorithms Miss the Mark
Plazo’s core thesis was both simple and unsettling: machines lack context.
“AI is fearless, but also clueless,” he warned. “It finds trends, but not intentions.”
He cited examples like machine-driven funds failing to respond to COVID news, noting, “By the click here time the algorithms adjusted, the humans were already positioned.”
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The Astronomer Analogy
Rather than dismiss AI, Plazo proposed a partnership.
“AI is the vehicle—but you decide the direction,” he said. It sees—but doesn’t think.
Students pressed him on behavioral economics, to which Plazo acknowledged: “Yes, it can scan Twitter sentiment—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. “They’ve been raised by data—but instinct,” said Dr. Raymond Tan, “is only half the story.”
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Co-Intelligence: Merging Math with Meaning
Plazo shared that his firm is building “hybrid cognition models”—AI that understands not just volatility, but motive.
“Only you can judge character,” he reminded. “Belief isn’t programmable.”
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The Speech That Started a Thousand Debates
As Plazo exited the stage, the crowd rose. But more importantly, they lingered.
“I came for machine learning,” said a PhD candidate. “But I got a lesson in human insight.”
And maybe that’s the real power of AI’s limits: they force us to rediscover our own.