Analytics · AI · Judgement
Most of what goes wrong with data and AI is not a modelling problem. It is a question of what we choose to measure, what we let machines decide, and who stays accountable.
I'm Shashwat Kumar. For 15+ years I have led analytics and AI across financial services, insurance and telecom/media. I write here about the quieter side of the work: governance, measurement, data quality, and how intelligent systems should be designed to earn trust.
Play with the ideas →Learn something in 60 secondsRead the essays
Selected essays on AI governance, metrics and data
Faster cars need better brakes
Nobody buys a sports car for its brakes, yet the brakes are what let you drive it fast. I keep coming back to that picture whenever a new AI capability lands on my desk.
Intelligence without a main character
Much of the conversation about general AI imagines a single brilliant system that does everything. I am not sure that is how it will show up.
When the score becomes the goal
Every analyst learns Goodhart's lesson the hard way: once a number is used as a target, people find ways to move the number that do not move the thing it was supposed to measure.
If agents can collaborate, they can trade
The moment two software agents can negotiate a task between them, they can also exchange something of value for it. Collaboration and commerce are closer cousins than they look.
Models are only as good as their inputs
Garbage in, garbage out is the oldest cliché in computing, and it has never been more relevant. Larger models are better at sounding confident, which makes bad inputs more dangerous rather than less.
Attention is not the same as value
Watching more young people aim for careers built on audience size has left me with an uncomfortable question: what happens to an economy when attention becomes the main thing people are trained to produce?
Field notes
DPDP Act 2023 and Rules 2025: a practical readiness guide
Plain-English guide to India's DPDP Act 2023 and DPDP Rules 2025: phased timeline to 13 May 2027, core obligations, penalties and a practical readiness checklist.
MSME-1 and Section 43B(h): what finance teams need ready by 31 October
MSME Form 1 half-yearly return (due 31 October and 30 April) and Income-tax Section 43B(h) 15/45-day payment rule explained, with a payables-ageing checklist.
