Hi, I’m Vishal. I write about how AI is reshaping society—power, privacy, work, and attention—alongside travel notes, some creative writing, and small, everyday observations.
I don’t have it all figured out; I’m thinking in public and changing my mind. If the human side of technology and other observations interests you, welcome.
See more on vishalvshekkar.com.
A quiet Mysore evening at a café window, an old man with his kulfi, and the fleeting glance we shared — proof that the smallest moments can linger the longest.
Over the past couple months I’ve picked up some truly unique bags of coffee, each with its own story, process, and tasting profile. I wanted to catalogue them here—not just as a record of what I’m drinking, but also as a way to reflect on how diverse and experimental the coffee world has become. From co-ferments that taste like fruit candy to carefully processed Geshas, this little collection feels like a tour through farms and roasters who treat coffee like art....
This essay explores the years of thought behind my personal manifesto—how the inevitability of entropy isn’t just a source of disorder, but the very foundation of intelligence and learning. Through a personal journey from nihilism to clarity, I reframe entropy as a generative force—one whose gradients fuel creativity, innovation, and understanding. It’s a manifesto for embracing complexity, surfing chaos, and transforming disorder into insight.
This article examines how our increasingly intimate relationships with AI create a dangerous asymmetry, where humans trust AI companions that may soon be executing hidden agendas. Vishal, an AI industry veteran, warns that this dynamic makes us highly susceptible to manipulation, moving beyond simple influence to the ‘inception’ of ideas we could end up believing are our own.
End-to-end encryption isn’t enough. Learn how on-device machine learning models can silently profile you—and how to fight back.
I loved the em dash for its messy elegance. Now it just makes my writing look like it was spat out by a language model.
An unexpectedly deep conversation with Anand on our drive to the airport touching on optimistic nihilism; and I’m still pondering it a month later.
Caught between two oblivious leg-jigglers, I endured a movie seat earthquake that turned into an accidental physics illustration.
In the 080 lounge at Bangalore airport, a pattern of gender bias emerges as Amex salesmen exclusively approach men, overlooking potential female customers. This selective strategy raises questions about underlying biases in marketing tactics within cosmopolitan settings.
The blog post examines how Juspay’s auto-checking of HDFC Bank’s anti-phishing ‘Secure Access ID’ could undermine user security. The author argues that this action, while not immediately dangerous, could condition users to be less vigilant against phishing attacks. The post contends that third parties like Juspay should not alter a bank’s security measures. The post also questions if HDFC’s anti-phishing measure is effective, in the first place and discusses who should be responsible in defining and mitigating a site’s threat model.