WikipediaExtracts:Doomsday Clock
Extracted from Wikipedia --
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The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the clock is a metaphor, not a prediction, for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. That is, the time on the clock is not to be interpreted as actual time. A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the clock, with the Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to one represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight, which is then assessed in January of each year. The main factors influencing the clock are nuclear warfare, climate change, and artificial intelligence. The Bulletin's Science and Security Board monitors new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.
The clock's original setting in 1947 was 7 minutes to midnight. It has since been set backward 8 times and forward 17 times. The farthest time from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, and the nearest is 90 seconds, set on January 2023.
The clock was moved to 150 seconds (2 minute, 30 seconds) in 2017, then forward to 2 minutes to midnight in January 2018, and left unchanged in 2019. In January 2020, it was moved forward to 100 seconds (1 minute, 40 seconds) before midnight. In January 2023, the Clock was moved forward to 90 seconds (1 minute, 30 seconds) before midnight and remained unchanged in January 2024.
