The Doomsday Clock, which predicts how close humanity is to extinction, has been moved forward to 89 seconds to midnight.
It comes as last year, the clock remained at 90 seconds, with conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and increasing tensions between China and Taiwan cited as a reason for the stagnant clock hand.
But the re-election of divisive figures may have contributed to this year’s decision, with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Nicolas Maduro all taking office again.
In recent years, climate change has been a major factor in pushing the clock hands forward, with devastating wildfires in California this month and powerful hurricanes leaving thousands without homes.
This year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited nuclear escalation, climate change and biological threats such as Covid and Avian flu as the main reasons for the change.
But the annoucement also namechecked disruptive technologies such as AI and a spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories as major factors contributing towards the change.
The symbolic clock is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who last year set it at 90 seconds to midnight.
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Speaking after the announcement, former Colombian president and Bulletin member, Juan Manuel Santos, said: ‘The clock is a stark diagnosis of our reality – we stand closer to human catastrophe than ever before.
‘2024 was the hottest year on record, destroying lives across the globe. The only effective response is for nations to come together. This is why it’s alarming that President Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement.’
Santos also said America’s recent withdrawal form the World Health Organisation is ‘another worrisome decision that will have a huge ramifications for the global health security’.
In a statement accompanying the annoucement, the Bulletin said: ‘In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.’
Regarding the role of AI in moving the clock forward, they said: ‘Increasing chaos, disorder, and dysfunction in the world’s information ecosystem threaten society’s capacity to address difficult challenges, and it is clear that AI has great potential to accelerate these processes of information corruption.
‘AI-enabled distortion of the information environment may be an important factor in preventing the world from dealing effectively with urgent major threats like nuclear war, pandemics, and climate change.
‘This continuing problem took on extra significance for the United States in 2024, when, according to numerous reports, Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns attempted to subvert the 2024 US national elections. Advances in LLM technologies and dramatic improvements in the phony video depictions known as deepfakes could have consequential future effects on the information ecosystem.’
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Last year, Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told Metro: ‘Each year, we ask two questions. Is humanity safer, or at greater risk this year, compared to last year when we last set it?
‘And is humanity safer, or at greater risk this year compared to the last 75-plus years?’
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In 2020 the clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight and remained unchanged for the next three years.
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They first set the clock to be seven minutes away from midnight in 1947.
Some years, the hands do not move, signifying the global situation has remained the same.
In 1991, the clock hands were even moved backwards as the Cold War came to an end, and the US and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
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