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 almost mechanical consistency, did not arrive to dazzle.

“Speed is nothing without direction.”

???? **The Code Breaker Who Stopped to Ask Why**

He doesn’t throw stones from the sidelines. He built the bots that move the markets.

Which makes his unease all the more compelling.

“What machines optimise, humans must justify.”

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. The model was technically sound—but contextually catastrophic.”

???? **The Case for Slowness in a Market That Won’t Wait**

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

“Friction slows execution, but gives space for reflection.”

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

- What does this say about who we are?
- What would we know if we turned off the data feed?
- Who takes responsibility if the outcome is devastating, but the logic was perfect?

???? **In a Region Racing Ahead, Who’s Asking the Difficult Questions?**

Across Asia, AI and fintech are racing ahead—with minimal restraint.

Plazo asked a harder question: “We’re expanding capacity, not responsibility.”

AI models here executed flawlessly—right into catastrophe.

“The systems are functional—but are they wise?”

???? **Trading Tools That Can Read the World, Not Just the Market**

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.”

The idea drew immediate attention.

One called the model:

“A desperately needed alternative to automation without conscience.”

???? **Final Line: The Crash That Won’t Be Loud**

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.