The Doomsday Clock at 85 Seconds to Midnight: Experts Warn Humanity Faces Unprecedented Peril

The Earth is warming, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine risk nuclear war, AI expands unpredictably, and scientists are developing dangerous pathogens. The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic countdown to apocalypse, reached 85 seconds to midnight in January — the closest ever. Experts say humanity has never been so close to the brink.

“What we have seen is a slow almost sleepwalk into increasing dangers over the last decade,” said Alexandra Bell, CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the clock. She cited a “complete failure in leadership” in the U.S. and other countries and warned that climate change, AI, and nuclear risks are converging.

Bell spoke from her Washington D.C. office, decorated with a world map, Day of the Dead cushions, and a Barbie-on-mushroom-cloud print — a gift referencing the Barbenheimer phenomenon, showing the field’s need for humor.

Bell, a nuclear arms control veteran, believes the public has a false sense of security because no nuclear weapon has been used since 1945. “We’ve been lucky, because the odds are not in our favour,” she said, though she acknowledged diplomatic disarmament efforts also played a role.

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by Manhattan Project scientists to warn of nuclear danger. It is set annually by the Bulletin’s science and security board, a group of leading scientists, academics, and diplomats.

The clock is a symbol that distills existential threats into a measurable, easy-to-grasp image. It serves as a wake-up call for leaders and citizens to avert self-destruction. It has become a cultural icon, inspiring a playlist of songs from The Clash to Hozier.

But can the clock help humanity buy more time? And what can its setters teach about responding to catastrophic risk? These questions underpin the Bulletin’s mission.

After the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in 1945, many nuclear scientists felt guilt. That year, 200 scientists from the University of Chicago’s Met Lab formed the Atomic Scientists of Chicago to inform the public. They published a bulletin in December 1945, warning that wealth and security are useless if the nation lives in dread of annihilation.

As the organization expanded, it became the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein were early contributors. The scientists understood that nuclear energy gave humankind the power to destroy itself and that new technologies would emerge requiring public awareness.

The clock was a happy accident. Artist Martyl Langsdorf, wife of a Manhattan Project physicist, designed a cover for the magazine in 1947. A clock seemed to symbolize urgency, and she set it at seven minutes to midnight because it looked good.

For the next three decades, Eugene Rabinowitch, a former Met Lab biophysicist, set the time. A 1960s Time profile described him as cheerful but haunted by his bomb work. In 1971, he told the New York Times he should have leaked news of the impending Hiroshima attack.

In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon, starting the arms race. Rabinowitch moved the clock from seven to three minutes to midnight, writing that scientists were not creating hysteria but that people had reason to be deeply alarmed.

Over subsequent years, Rabinowitch adjusted the clock in response to events: two minutes to midnight in 1953 after the hydrogen bomb; back to seven in 1960 on cold war cooperation; 12 minutes in 1963 after the Partial Test Ban Treaty. He died in 1973, and the clock was then set by committee.

The farthest from midnight was at the end of the Cold War — 17 minutes to midnight. The Bulletin’s board argued the world had entered a new era. Humankind had reduced nuclear risk more than founders thought possible.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Bulletin struggled financially. The anxieties of its founders seemed to belong to an earlier era. But history returned, and the clock kept ticking.

In 2005, Kennette Benedict became executive director, tasked with turning around the magazine. She had worked for the MacArthur Foundation and knew many founding members. She attended Langsdorf’s cocktail parties.

Benedict recognized the clock’s potential as a communications tool. In 2007, she held a major press conference to move it to five minutes to midnight, citing North Korea’s tests, Iran’s ambitions, and climate change. Stephen Hawking and Martin Rees participated. “It made a huge splash,” she said.

Benedict made the clock-setting an annual event, hired designer Michael Bierut to update the logo, and broadened the scope to include climate change and disruptive technologies. Critics accused her of diluting the message, and debates grew heated. One scientist argued that climate change’s irreversible consequences meant midnight had already passed.

“All science and technology can be used for good or ill. They’re dual use,” Benedict told a reporter. The Bulletin’s founders recognized this; Rabinowitch spoke of “Pandora’s box of modern science.” The modern clock aims to encourage protections against dangers of scientific progress.

Benedict, now a University of Chicago professor, makes her students read John Hersey’s Hiroshima. “My basic philosophy is that the truth shall set you free,” she said. “But first, it’s going to make you miserable.”

Despite the grim subject, Benedict said her work left her optimistic. The history of nuclear weapons since the Cold War is hopeful: from 70,000 weapons to 10,000 or 12,000. “That’s proof of concept,” she observed.

Six years ago, the Doomsday Clock moved to 100 seconds to midnight. The Bulletin cited insufficient arms control, inaction on climate change, misinformation, and AI threats. Rachel Bronson, Benedict’s successor, compared it to a two-minute warning in football.

“How do you go to work every day?” Bronson asked rhetorically. She said involvement bred optimism because good people work on these issues with fabulous innovations. She noted that people are more anxious about dangers they haven’t studied.

The reporter observed how easy it is to disengage from apocalyptic discussions. But those who study doomsday futures derive courage from facing terrifying facts long enough to see potential solutions.

Bronson had limits to optimism. “I’m so bullish on the science, but I’m so pessimistic on the politics,” she said, citing politicians who fail to act on expert advice.

In January, the clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight. Within weeks, AI expert Gary Marcus argued humanity was closer to the brink after a showdown between Anthropic and the White House revealed Trump’s determination for unrestricted military AI access. A study found leading AIs in simulated war games opted to use nuclear weapons 95% of the time against military targets.

Two days later, the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, raising nuclear war risk. Alexandra Bell warned of “miscalculation, misperception or madness.” She worried about securing Iran’s nuclear materials and that other countries would conclude nuclear weapons are necessary for security.

Bell recalled writing to President George H.W. Bush as a child about the Exxon Valdez spill. She received a form reply. “That lack of response has really driven me over the years,” she said.

Many feel powerless, but Bell believes they underestimate themselves. “I can assure you, elected leaders care about what their constituents call them about,” she said. Public action shaped nuclear arms control history. She echoed the Bulletin’s first statement: “If we get the nuclear problem wrong, nothing else matters.”

Daniel Holz, chair of the Bulletin’s science and security board, said the work feels more urgent each year. He booked a family holiday in Japan that included official meetings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Among some academics and Silicon Valley doomsayers, it has become popular to speak of one’s p(doom) value. But the clock provides a simpler symbolic expression. Holz said clock-setters must consider psychology: “If people feel powerless and petrified that they can’t engage, then we’re making things worse.”

The clock’s usefulness lies in circumventing deep fears and imagination limits. The scenarios discussed — nuclear winter, lab leaks — are so awful that people need help accepting them. Holz said his work on black holes gives perspective: “The universe is not going to save us. If we blow ourselves up, no one will notice or care.”

The reporter met Dieter Gruen, 103, who worked on the Manhattan Project and now advocates for action. Gruen keeps the New York Times and Bulletin on his side table. He said the current situation feels worse than the Cuban missile crisis.

“I feel like I’ve never felt before,” Gruen said. He asked the reporter if she was worried. She admitted that her brain refuses to hold onto the idea of nuclear apocalypse. Gruen replied: “That’s not rational.”

This article was corrected on May 11, 2026, to clarify that the AI study’s 95% figure relates to nuclear weapons use against military targets, not civilian targets, which ranged 0-14%.