Before an audience poised to inherit the markets, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—chose to talk not about growth, but governance.

MANILA — the atmosphere inside AIM’s lecture hall was not electric, but charged—with thought.

Plazo, a man whose trading systems are trusted by institutional investors across continents and have posted near-perfect results in volatile markets, did not arrive to dazzle.

“If you hand your financial future to a machine,” he began, “ensure it reflects your principles—not just your targets.”

???? **When the Innovator Becomes the Interrogator**

Unlike many critics of AI, Plazo is not an outsider. He shaped the system that now dominates.

Which makes his unease all the more compelling.

“Optimisation is a tool, not a compass.”

He referenced an early pandemic incident: an AI under his firm flagged a short trade on gold—right before central bank intervention reversed market expectations.

“We stopped it. It crunched numbers, not nuance.”

???? **Delay Isn’t a Bug. It’s a Human Feature.**

Plazo warned against the growing cultural obsession with speed—particularly in finance.

“Delay isn’t inefficiency—it’s responsibility.”

He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:

- Is this trade aligned with the values of the firm—or just its ambition?
- Is this merely a technical position—or a real-world one?
- Are we hiding behind the algorithm?

???? **Asia’s AI Boom—and the Accountability Gap**

The investment in algorithmic systems is massive, and largely unregulated.

Plazo asked a harder question: “The software is evolving—but is the oversight?”

AI models executed flawlessly—right into catastrophe.

“We’ve built machines that never blink. But who teaches them when to look away?”

???? **AI That Understands Stories, Not Just Signals**

Plazo isn’t calling for a retreat from technology.

He is instead building what he terms **“narrative-integrated AI”**—systems that assess not just numbers, but context, tone, and geopolitical undercurrents.

“A good algorithm predicts price. A better one understands pattern. The best? Purpose.”

Several venture click here capitalists approached Plazo after his speech.

One called the model:

“The future of finance, if it wants to have one.”

???? **Not All Collapses Scream First**

Plazo closed with a sentence that now circles boardrooms like a quiet echo:

“It won’t come from fear. It will come from code—unquestioned, unchallenged.”

Not a prophecy of doom—but a call for discernment.

Because systems move money. But only people carry the weight of consequences.