Chris Shayan's Blog

AI has long been defined by its capacity for intelligence — pattern recognition, problem-solving, and strategic planning. Yet, as AI permeates every facet of our lives, a fundamental gap persists: the absence of genuine subjective experience, or sentience. This article proposes a radical shift from merely sapient (intelligent) to fully integrated sapient-sentient AI, leveraging a meta-cybernetic framework for its architecture. By designing systems capable of affective homeostasis and cognitive s...

Let’s be honest with each other. The weekly 1:1 meeting — that sacred cow of modern management, evangelized by HR departments and dutifully dropped into our calendars like a recurring digital headache — is bullshit. I am not against having a good, deep coffee talk that is spontaneous.

It is a soul-crushing waste of high-value time. It is a relic of an industrial-era mindset where managers, like factory foremen, had to physically check the human machinery to ensure it was function...

It’s remarkable how quickly a bold vision can become a tangible reality. Just one year ago, we officially launched the Backbase AI Center here in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. Our mission was ambitious: to build a world-class hub that would harness the power of artificial intelligence to solve the most complex challenges in banking. Today, on our first anniversary, I couldn’t be prouder to reflect on our journey, celebrate our key achievements, and share our vision for what’s next. This center ...

From frustrating clicks to an AI that manages it all. Welcome to the Invisible Bank.

Think about the last time you managed your money. Was it empowering? Or was it a cascade of logins, endless clicks, and a lingering anxiety that you missed something? For most of us, banking is a chore. It’s a series of frustrating tasks we have to do, not a system that works for us. We’re buried in paperwork, confused by jargon, and left feeling that we’re always a step behind.

This ...

The excitement around AI (whatever it means lately) is undeniable. From optimizing supply chains to personalizing customer experiences, the potential for AI to drive business value is constantly in the spotlight.

However, amid the hype, a crucial conversation is missing: the true cost of AI.

It’s not just about the initial software and talent expenses; it’s about the significant, often invisible, financial and environmental burdens that come with AI adoption.

We oft...

One of the things I enjoy about business trips is the uninterrupted time they provide for reading. The longer the trip, the better. On my last one, I read Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Other Minds. It challenges the human-centric view of what it means to be conscious and opens up a new world of possibilities.

His masterful blend of biology, philosophy, and personal observation makes a compelling case for a distributed and embodied form of consciousness. I was particularly drawn to “Conscious Experience,”...

You can find the code in https://github.com/chrisshayan/devex-agent

As developers, we all face friction points throughout the day — from repetitive tasks to sifting through documentation or getting stuck on a challenging bug. The Agentic DevEx Assistant was built to help with these challenges by acting as a developer’s co-pilot. Instead of just generating code, this tool works alongside you, proactively offering contextual assistance, automating common tasks, and helping you navigate your team’s ...

In my Agentic Treasury and Liquidity Management (TLM), I shared about my latest open source Agentic TLM on GitHub. In this post, I like to talk about the ML technique that was used in Cash Flow Forecasting Agent (CFFA) — “The Oracle” agent.

Ensemble learning is a machine learning paradigm where multiple models, often referred to as “weak learners,” are trained to solve the same problem and then combined to achieve better perfor...

Hello everyone! Today, I’m genuinely excited (and a little nervous!) to share a project that’s been fueled by my deep curiosity about digital biology and the incredible potential of AI: Agentic Worm. You can find the repository now on GitHub at https://github.com/chrisshayan/agentic-worm.

For a while now, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of bridging the gap between biological simulation and artificial intelligence. How does something as seemingly simple as a worm move, react, and even “decide”? T...

Treasury and Liquidity Management (TLM) is the strategic backbone of a bank’s financial health. At its core, TLM is about optimizing the flow and availability of cash (liquidity), managing financial risks, and ensuring the bank can meet its obligations at all times, both short-term and long-term.

It’s critical for banks because it directly underpins their financial stability and solvency, especially in volatile markets, by ensuring there’s always en...