Five Minutes

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the nonprofit organization Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the Clock is a proxy mechanism for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances: A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the Clock, with the Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to "zero" represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight. This is 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 seven minutes to midnight. It has since been set backward eight times and forward 19 times. The farthest time from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, and the closest is 85 seconds in 2026. The Clock was moved to 150 seconds (2 minutes, 30 seconds) in 2017, then forward to two minutes to midnight in 2018, and left unchanged in 2019. It was moved forward to 100 seconds (1 minute, 40 seconds) in 2020, 90 seconds (1 minute, 30 seconds) in 2023, 89 seconds (1 minute, 29 seconds) in 2025, and 85 seconds (1 minute, 25 seconds) in 2026.