Why AI Struggles When the Market Panics

Wiki Article

AI trailblazer Joseph Plazo just warned a room full of elite students something Wall Street won’t admit: AI may be efficient, but it lacks wisdom.

MANILA — He didn’t show up to sugarcoat things. He came to crack illusions.

On a sunlit Thursday morning at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Plazo addressed a sea of students from top Asian universities—HKUST—ready for a sermon on AI’s glory in finance.

What they got instead? A jolt of truth.

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

The room broke into giggles. Then they stilled. 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 designs 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. It won’t.”

Plazo detailed real-world case studies—moments when AI signaled winning trades… right before a central bank pivot or an unexpected war. Events that didn’t fit the algorithm.

### Smart Students Tried to Push Back—They Didn’t Win

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

Plazo didn’t flinch.

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

The room read more reacted. That hit different.

Another asked, “Can AI ever understand conviction?”

Plazo raised an eyebrow.

“Conviction isn’t math. It’s gut. It’s forged by failure and memory. You can’t download that.”

### Plazo’s Words = Financial Therapy

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

Students admitted they saw AI as a cheat code—an escape hatch from risk, from thinking too hard. Plazo called it out.

“You can automate your trades. You can’t automate your values.”

That line slapped. Because everyone in that room—from the copyright cowboys to the quant whizzes—wanted alpha. But not at the cost of their soul.

### AI’s Real Role? Powerful—But Limited.

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

- It filters noise.
- It backtests at scale.
- It tracks 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 care 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 leadership talking.

### This Isn’t Just Markets—It’s Mindset

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 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 pause.

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