“Automated Finance and the Ethics It Leaves Behind”
“Automated Finance and the Ethics It Leaves Behind”
Blog Article
At a gathering of Asia’s next generation of financiers and technologists, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—delivered not predictions, but a pointed pause.
As the Philippines builds its reputation as a technology hub — 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.”
???? **Joseph Plazo: A Technologist With a Conscience**
Unlike many critics of AI, Plazo is not an outsider. He led the firm that made AI profitable.
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 lacked the ability to see the moment.”
???? **Why Pause Could Be the Last Power Humans Hold**
Plazo warned against the growing cultural obsession with speed—particularly in finance.
“Machines may win milliseconds. But humans protect meaning.”
He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:
- Is this consistent with how we want to be remembered?
- Does this decision consider factors machines miss—public mood, historical echoes, lived experience?
- Who takes responsibility if the outcome is devastating, but the logic was perfect?
???? **In a Region Racing Ahead, Who’s Asking the Difficult Questions?**
The investment in algorithmic systems is massive, and largely unregulated.
Plazo asked a harder question: “Can we build systems faster than we build the ethics to govern them?”
AI models executed flawlessly—right into catastrophe.
“We’ve built machines that never blink. But who teaches get more info 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.
“We don’t need smarter machines. We need more conscious ones.”
Investors weren’t just curious—they were concerned.
One called the model:
“What regulation failed to build, this framework might.”
???? **The Next Market Failure May Begin With a Perfectly Executed Mistake**
Plazo closed with a sentence that now circles boardrooms like a quiet echo:
“It won’t be noise that breaks us. It’ll be silence.”
Not fear. Foresight.
Because in a world ruled by automation, the last act of leadership may simply be to ask: why?