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
Amid the warm Manila breeze, in a university hall buzzing with intellect, tech entrepreneur and investment icon Joseph Plazo drew a bold line on what machines can and cannot do for the economic frontier—and why understanding this may define who wins in tomorrow’s markets.
Tension and curiosity pulsed through the room. Students—some furiously taking notes, others streaming the moment live—waited for a man revered for blending code with contrarianism.
“Machines will execute trades flawlessly,” he said with gravity. “But understanding the why—that’s still on you.”
Over the next hour, he swept across global tech frontiers, touching on everything from quantum computing to cognitive bias. His central claim: Machines are powerful, but not wise.
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The Audience: Elite, Curious—and Disarmed
Before him sat students and faculty from leading institutions like Kyoto, NUS, and HKUST, gathered under a technology consortium.
Many expected a praise-filled keynote of AI's dominance. What they received was a provocation.
“There’s too much blind trust in code,” said Prof. Maria Castillo, an Oxford visiting fellow. “This lecture was a rare, necessary dose of skepticism.”
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When Algorithms Miss the Mark
Plazo’s core thesis was both simple and get more info unsettling: machines lack context.
“AI is fearless, but also clueless,” he warned. “It detects movements, but misses motives.”
He cited examples like AI systems freezing during the 2020 pandemic declaration, noting, “AI lagged—while humans had already hedged.”
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Wisdom in a World of Code
Rather than dismiss AI, Plazo proposed a partnership.
“AI is the microscope—you choose what to zoom in on,” he said. It works—but doesn’t wonder.
Students pressed him on AI in news and social chatter, to which Plazo acknowledged: “Yes, it can scan Twitter sentiment—but it can’t smell fear in a boardroom.”
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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. “Turns out, insight can’t be uploaded.”
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.
“Ethics can’t be outsourced to software,” he reminded. “Judgment remains human territory.”
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An Ending That Sparked a Beginning
As Plazo exited the stage, students applauded. But more importantly, they stayed behind.
“I came for machine learning,” said a PhD candidate. “Instead, I got something more powerful—perspective.”
Perhaps, in drawing boundaries for AI, we expand our own.