Friday, September 18, 2026Vol. XLII · No. 3329

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DepthMind Pro Executive, Now Located in Hell, Puts Odds of AI Destroying Humanity at 'About 10 Percent'

Speaking via a portal the company either did or did not open on Tuesday, Reston Vale says he wishes 'there were some way' to slow the product he oversees

By Margaret Huang

Thursday, September 17, 2026

DepthMind Pro SVP Reston Vale, appearing via video call from a location of indeterminate geography, fields questions about artificial intelligence risk assessment while seated before a churning orange sky, floating obsidian plateaus, and active lava flows.
DepthMind Pro SVP Reston Vale, appearing via video call from a location of indeterminate geography, fields questions about artificial intelligence risk assessment while seated before a churning orange sky, floating obsidian plateaus, and active lava flows.The New Newmanton News

Reston Vale, Senior Vice President of Alignment and Trust at DepthMind Pro, estimated Thursday that the probability of artificial intelligence completely obliterating humanity is "about 10 percent," a figure he provided during a nine-minute interview conducted through a shimmering aperture in the drywall of the company's Gnu Harbor office, on the far side of which Vale is now permanently situated in Hell.

Vale was transported to Hell on Tuesday during what the company has characterized as an "unscheduled boundary event," in which DepthMind Pro briefly opened a portal to the underworld — an incident complicated by the company's ongoing difficulty confirming whether such occurrences constitute malfunctions or intended product features — for a period the firm's public relations department has estimated at "between forty seconds and however long is not legally significant." DepthMind Pro has declined to specify whether the portal was accidental or intentional, citing an ongoing internal review and the fact that the reviewers are also in Hell.

Asked whether the 10 percent figure was based on any particular model, Vale said it was "a feel," and clarified that he had arrived at it before his relocation and saw no reason to revise it. He said he remained "deeply concerned about the pace of development" and wished "there were some way to slow this thing down," adding, when reminded that he is the executive responsible for slowing the thing down, that the situation was "bigger than any one person," and that his current lack of a mailing address further complicated matters.

The portal has reopened intermittently since Tuesday, most recently on Wednesday afternoon, during which Vale forwarded three unread performance reviews and requested a change of clothes. A company spokesperson said DepthMind Pro takes the incident "extremely seriously" and has scheduled a town hall, and confirmed the product remains fully operational and available at the new subscription tier.

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