“Doomsday Clock‘, which annually reviews the state of the world, is now set for 85 seconds to midnight – the closest it’s ever come to announcing a man-made global disaster.
Humanity continues to face a species-endangering catastrophe through nuclear deterrence, which has not been resolved climate changeand expedited deployment artificial intelligence (AI), according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an organization that updates the doomsday clock.
“Our current trajectory is unsustainable,” they say they wrote in their report. “National leaders – especially those in the United States, Russia and China – must take the lead in finding a way out of the brink.”
Nuclear Escalation by “Great Powers”
The urgency comes as nuclear powers flirt with escalation around the world.
“[C]competition between major powers has become a full-fledged arms race, as evidenced by the growing number of nuclear warheads and platforms in China and the modernization of nuclear launch vehicles in the United States, Russia and China,” the researchers wrote.
The report also described the lack of international cooperation on disarmament.
“As we publish this statement, the last major agreement limiting the number of strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia, New START, will expire, ending nearly 60 years of efforts to limit nuclear competition between the world’s two largest nuclear powers,” they said. “Furthermore, the US administration may consider resuming explosive nuclear testing, which will further accelerate a renewed nuclear arms race.”
These escalating conflicts are against the backdrop of accelerating climate change, which countries have also failed to manage. The international response has become “deeply destructive,” according to the Bulletin’s researchers, who cited a lack of commitment to phase out fossil fuels globally and the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy technology.
The threat of AI and the “mirror life”
Following on from last year’s report, the Bulletin also warned against unregulated technologies, particularly the creation of “mirror life” – chemically synthesized life that is a molecular mirror image of life that has naturally evolved on Earth. That fear is like that mirror organisms could crowd out native microbes or other organisms and that these life forms could evade the immune system, leading to deadly pandemics.
According to the report’s authors, artificial intelligence is another threat, both because of its power to amplify disinformation and because of the incorporation of artificial intelligence into countries’ defense sectors.
Fixing these problems does not look easy, and the global rise of autocracy is undermining efforts to address these international crises, the report’s authors concluded.
“The current autocratic trend hinders international cooperation, reduces accountability and acts as a threat accelerator, making dangerous nuclear, climate and technological threats all the more difficult to reverse,” they wrote.
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