‘Doomsday clock’ moved closer to midnight
Humanity is closer to a global catastrophe than ever, a leading group of atomic scientists has said. The international community is facing a wide range of threats from a “full-blown arms race” to climate change and even AI-designed pathogens, the group warned on Tuesday.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists adjusted its Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight, moving it five seconds forward to reflect the group’s assessment of the growing danger. The clock is updated each January.
The latest adjustment was prompted by what the group called “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic” policies of major powers that have turned the competition between them into a “full-blown arms race.” Conflicts involving nuclear powers also set the “negative trends” of the past year, the scientists said, mentioning the continued hostilities in Ukraine, as well as the US and Israeli attacks on Iran among the sources of instability.
The group also criticized US plans to develop a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system advocated by President Donald Trump, saying that it is likely to fuel a new “space-based arms race.” They also warned that the Russian-American New START Treaty is about to expire, leaving Moscow and Washington without any arms control agreements and urged both nations to “resume dialogue about limiting their nuclear arsenals.”
The scientists also stated that the international response to the “climate emergency” has gone from “wholly insufficient to profoundly destructive” and accused the US administration of declaring “war on renewable energy.”
The group also named some of the more exotic reasons to worry, such as so-called “mirror life” – cells composed of chemically-synthesized molecules that are mirror-images of those found in nature. Such organisms could get out of control, wiping out humanity and “disrupting all life on Earth,” they warned.
The development of artificial intelligence (AI) poses a “different sort of biological threat,” the bulletin said, adding that AI could be used to design new bacteria and viruses.
The Doomsday Clock was moved forward ten seconds in 2023 and by just one in 2025.
