High reliability organization (HRO) principles have been used to reduce risk and enhance safety, embracing such tenets as high tempo, operational decision-making; clear and repeated communication; an open organizational culture; and the importance of knowledge-sharing and trust. Increasingly, HROs have incorporated remote and virtual organizational structures, where members work in coordinated ways over long distances. These reliability-seeking virtual organizations (RSVOs) apply HRO principles in settings where members are virtual and work is challenging, whether due to geography or operational demands. Research suggests that organizational structuring, trust and knowledge sharing are essential in RVSOs. Yet, as virtualization extends into areas that stress or exceed human capacity, due to the nature of the area (e.g., polar regions or warzones) or speed (e.g., fully-automated contracts), we expect the increasing participation of machines and artificial intelligence in maintaining organizational reliability. This mixed human-AI operation raises questions about the traditional principles of high reliability. This research therefore explores the challenges of applying HRO principles to RSVOs that operate in resource-poor and extreme settings. We explore issues in organizational structure, trust, culture, and communication, in a case study of Arctic emergency response networks and other remote RSVOs at the margins.