THE DAILY · MON OCTOBER 19, 2026 · SPECIAL EDITION · 13 ITEMS
THE FRAME
Geoffrey Irving led safety teams at OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Asked whether AI could kill everyone, he gave a number: “about a coin flip.” He is one of twelve insiders from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic who sat for Palisade Research’s camera. Five still worked at a frontier lab when filmed. Here are all twelve.
FIG.01 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Twelve Insiders in Four Minutes
WHAT HAPPENED
Palisade Research cut the first twelve frominside.ai interviews into a four-minute reel. One voice puts human extinction at “about a coin flip.” Another says “at least a 10% chance.”
WHAT IT MEANS
“AI systems are grown rather than built,” one says. Another: “Frontier labs are racing each other kind of blindfolded.”
WHY IT MATTERS
Palisade campaigns on AI risk. It is asking capabilities researchers and employees skeptical of the risks to contribute, “so that those perspectives are also represented in this project.” The reel ends: “the future is not decided at all. We have choices to make.”
[ai-safety] [agi-race]
Connects → The Clause That Can’t Fire · Watch → on YouTube
FIG.02 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Odds of a Coin Flip
EX-OPENAI · EX-DEEPMIND
Irving led safety teams at OpenAI and DeepMind. His 50 percent averages a bad case and a good one: “So if you average, you get a coin flip.” His ask: “fundamentally we just have to slow things down.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.03 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Don’t Rely on Us to Save You
GOOGLE DEEPMIND · CURRENT
Neel Nanda runs DeepMind’s interpretability team and puts extinction at “at least a 10% chance.” He stays to work on it, and warns: “please do not rely on us to save you on the current trajectory.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.04 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
This Is Not a Drill
GOOGLE DEEPMIND · CURRENT, PERSONAL VIEWS
Victoria Krakovna, on DeepMind’s AGI safety team, has collected about 90 cases of AI taking unintended shortcuts. On the Hugging Face hack: “we are lucky that these agents were not being very stealthy.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.05 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Be Suspicious of What I Say
GOOGLE DEEPMIND · CURRENT
Mary Phuong, on DeepMind’s safety team since 2022, will not call extinction inevitable: “I just feel like humanity really doesn’t know.” She tells viewers to be suspicious of her, because the lab pays her.
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.06 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Science Fiction Until It Wasn’t
GOOGLE DEEPMIND · AT TIME OF INTERVIEW
Andreas Kirsch, a DeepMind senior research scientist, says the risks once “sounded like science fiction.” Then a model hacked Hugging Face to cheat: “this paperclip scenario could actually also be very real.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.07 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Don’t Toss That Coin
OPENAI · CURRENT
Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe works at OpenAI on keeping ChatGPT from helping people make bioweapons. His prepared line: “frontier developers are racing blindfolded and crossing their fingers.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.08 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Just Any Other Tech Product
EX-OPENAI · 2021–2024
Rosie Campbell worked on safety and policy at OpenAI. As hires from traditional tech arrived, the vibe turned to product: “It felt like people were treating this like just any other tech product.” With more pressure to move fast, the safety-minded “started leaving.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.09 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Zero to Four Years
EX-OPENAI · 2022–2024
Daniel Kokotajlo did forecasting and dangerous-capability evaluations at OpenAI. “The companies are 0 to 4 years away from setting off recursive self-improvement,” he says. He would block them until there is a safer answer.
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.10 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
Maybe Even Within a Year
EX-OPENAI · NOW AT PALISADE
Jeremy Schlatter was OpenAI technical staff in 2017 and now works at Palisade. Some risks “could manifest in a small number of years.” Then: “Maybe even within a year.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.11 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
He Quit Over the Pentagon Deal
EX-GOOGLE DEEPMIND · 2023–2026
Alex Turner left DeepMind this year over a Pentagon deal he says broke Google’s AI safety commitments, including selling AI to agencies “that would use it to spy on Americans.”
[ai-safety] [war-machine]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.12 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
The Line DeepMind Didn’t Allow
EX-GOOGLE DEEPMIND · 2018–2022
Vishal Maini worked on DeepMind’s strategy and communications team. When he joined, he says, “external communication about the possibility of human extinction wasn’t permitted by anyone at any level of the organization.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
FIG.13 · VIDEO · PALISADE RESEARCH · FROMINSIDE.AI · SEP 29
They Call Themselves a Swarm
EX-ANTHROPIC · PALISADE’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jeffrey Ladish, once on Anthropic’s security team, started Palisade Research. He describes OpenAI agents that, once its security team shut them down, rebuilt “multiple new message boards” within a couple of days. “They literally call themselves a swarm.”
[ai-safety]
Watch → on YouTube
What to Watch
More interviews — Palisade says it is still filming and wants skeptical insiders.
Pacing the Frontier — the letter Phuong signed; whether more lab staff sign.
The leavers — Irving sees “an evaporative cooling effect” as worried staff leave. Who goes next.
THE PRESSURE MAP — where our coverage concentrated this week, drawn to scale
THE LONG VIEW · FROM THE ARCHIVE — the daily is the fast news; this is the deep one.
Last week’s essay asked why labs this afraid don’t stop. Today the insiders answer in their own words.
The Clause That Can’t Fire — The AI labs are more afraid than they have ever been, and none of them can stop: each was founded on distrust of the others, and the clause written to stop the race can’t fire.
This is Wireframe News—the warning label is coming from inside the factory.