“The Case for Human Judgment in an AI-Driven Market”
“The Case for Human Judgment in an AI-Driven Market”
Blog Article
Inside a strategy forum hosted at AIM in Manila, Joseph Plazo—founder of AI investment firm Plazo Sullivan Roche—challenged the room to rethink what success means in a world run by machines.
His algorithms have posted a 99% win rate across asset classes.
And yet, he stood in front of the next generation of business leaders to say:
“If you delegate execution to a machine,” he said, “ensure it reflects your values—not just your KPIs.”
???? **Joseph Plazo on Leadership in the Age of Logic**
Plazo is not retreating from AI—he’s refining how it’s led.
“Speed does not imply wisdom. Nor does precision imply perspective.”
He recalled a moment in 2020: a bot under his direction flagged a short on gold—hours before the Federal Reserve’s emergency announcement.
“We reversed the trade. It lacked what we call ‘narrative context.’”
???? **Why Strategic Friction Still Matters**
Plazo introduced a concept he now teaches internally: **Strategic Friction**.
“A moment of hesitation can preserve more value than a flawless trade.”
He then outlined **Conviction Calculus**, a leadership-level framework for decision validation in AI-assisted organizations:
- Are we compromising trust for short-term gain?
- Have human signals—history, intuition, market tone—been applied as counterbalance?
- Does our governance framework include accountability here for algorithmic decisions?
???? **The Scaling of Systems Must Be Matched by Strategic Intent**
Plazo pointed to Asia’s surging fintech sector—with massive investments in algorithmic trading and automation infrastructure from Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines.
But he cautioned:
“Governance is lagging behind growth.”
He referenced recent collapses of AI-driven hedge funds in Hong Kong in 2024, where systems failed to interpret macroeconomic risk.
“The code executed flawlessly. The oversight didn’t exist.”
???? **The Future of Machine Strategy Must Be Story-Aware**
Plazo is now advancing what he calls **“narrative-integrated AI”**—systems that integrate geopolitical signals, regulatory context, intent, and human tone into algorithmic output.
“We don’t just need more compute. We need more comprehension.”
Following his talk, venture firms from Tokyo and Jakarta began discussions on enterprise-level governance systems for algorithmic infrastructure.
One executive called the talk:
“How organizations can scale without losing strategic sovereignty.”
???? **Why Future Crises May Come Not From Emotion—But From Logic**
Plazo closed with a sobering truth:
“The next crash won’t be emotional,” he said. “It will be perfectly logical—executed without human pause, and left unchallenged.”
It wasn’t a call to slow down innovation—but to restore leadership to the process.