Sep 29, 2026 · 34 min · 11 segments
The way we picture cargo inspections is outdated and that mismatch is costing us time, money, and security. We sit down with David Smason, founder and former CEO of CargoSeer, now VP AI at Big Bear…
David SmasonGuest
Tony HinesHost
Trust is a big thing, isn't it? If we trust the AI, we'd take our hands off the wheel, wouldn't we? And I think that will come, that position.
I think also, what would you say to policymakers? What do you think they should be paying more attention to, perhaps, that they're not? I
think that our governments, collectively around the world, need to get better at procuring this type of technology.
Old procurement frameworks are built for heavy systems, long-term projects, lots of consultants and afford-deployed engineers.
And I've been part of so many processes with governments that requirements come out on day one, and by the time the tender is over 90 days later, the technology landscape has completely changed and what they're asking for is no longer relevant.
A lot of people, there's kind of this misconception that that means we're going to spend more money.
The second thing that I would say is don't be afraid to fail with AI, right? There's kind of this mindset with government procurement that, you know, we got to get it right the first time.
I think governments need to build more frameworks for what we call POCs, proofs of concepts, quick easy, relatively cheap, where you can test almost any type of technology in any type of operational situation or use case.
Here in the United States, the United States government is getting very, very, very good at that and understanding, okay, we want this technology, we want to test it right before we buy it, and we just need to figure out how we're going to test it.
So they don't know yet exactly how they're going to test it and how they're going to measure the outcome, but they're getting much, much, much better at that.
Trust is a big thing, isn't it? If we trust the AI, we'd take our hands off the wheel, wouldn't we? And I think that will come, that position.
I think also, what would you say to policymakers? What do you think they should be paying more attention to, perhaps, that they're not? I
think that our governments, collectively around the world, need to get better at procuring this type of technology.
Old procurement frameworks are built for heavy systems, long-term projects, lots of consultants and afford-deployed engineers.
And I've been part of so many processes with governments that requirements come out on day one, and by the time the tender is over 90 days later, the technology landscape has completely changed and what they're asking for is no longer relevant.
A lot of people, there's kind of this misconception that that means we're going to spend more money.
The second thing that I would say is don't be afraid to fail with AI, right? There's kind of this mindset with government procurement that, you know, we got to get it right the first time.
I think governments need to build more frameworks for what we call POCs, proofs of concepts, quick easy, relatively cheap, where you can test almost any type of technology in any type of operational situation or use case.
Here in the United States, the United States government is getting very, very, very good at that and understanding, okay, we want this technology, we want to test it right before we buy it, and we just need to figure out how we're going to test it.
So they don't know yet exactly how they're going to test it and how they're going to measure the outcome, but they're getting much, much, much better at that.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
