The Doomsday Clock is as close to midnight as ever — and now includes Generative AI as a risk factor

Humanity is the closest to global catastrophe we’ve ever been, according to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who have set their Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight for 2024 for the second year in a row.

The Bulletin’s highly-regarded Science and Security Board called for urgent dialogue between world leaders (particularly from the U.S., China, and Russia) on the key global risk areas they identified: Climate change, Biosecurity, and Nuclear risk, and Artificial Intelligence.

Their comments on Generative AI include the following:

“One of the most significant technological developments in the last year involved the dramatic advance of generative artificial intelligence. The apparent sophistication of chatbots based on large language models, such as ChatGPT, led some respected experts to express concern about existential risks arising from further rapid advancements in the field… AI has great potential to magnify disinformation and corrupt the information environment on which democracy depends. AI-enabled disinformation efforts could be a factor that prevents the world from dealing effectively with nuclear risks, pandemics, and climate change.”

We agree with The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists pragmatic concern regarding the evolving risks of Generative AI, and the Human Creator Alliance’s chartered mission hopes to mitigate some of these risk factors.