“Automated Finance and the Ethics It Leaves Behind”
“Automated Finance and the Ethics It Leaves Behind”
Blog Article
Inside the auditorium of the Asian Institute of Management, 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 almost mechanical consistency, did not arrive to dazzle.
“Delegating decisions doesn’t absolve responsibility.”
???? **When the Innovator Becomes the Interrogator**
He doesn’t throw stones from the sidelines. 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.
“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?
- What would we know if we turned off the data feed?
- Are we prepared to own this trade, even if it fails?
???? **The Human Cost of High-Speed Finance**
Markets in Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines are being reshaped by code.
Plazo asked a harder question: “The software is evolving—but is the oversight?”
Recent high-profile failures stem not from incompetence—but overconfidence in automation.
“We created tools that don’t know how to say no.”
???? **Beyond the Bot: Plazo’s Push for Narrative AI**
Plazo isn’t calling for a retreat from technology.
He is instead building what read more he terms **“narrative-integrated AI”**—systems that assess not just numbers, but context, tone, and geopolitical undercurrents.
“AI should be a compass—not a cannon.”
Investors weren’t just curious—they were concerned.
One called the model:
“What regulation failed to build, this framework might.”
???? **Not All Collapses Scream First**
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 a prophecy of doom—but a call for discernment.
Because systems move money. But only people carry the weight of consequences.