The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

[9] The Doomsday Clock's origin can be traced to the international group of researchers called the Chicago Atomic Scientists, who had participated in the Manhattan Project.

[12] In January 2007, designer Michael Bierut, who was on the Bulletin's Governing Board, redesigned the Doomsday Clock to give it a more modern feel.

The 5th Doomsday Clock Symposium[13] was held on November 14, 2013, in Washington, D.C.; it was a day-long event that was open to the public and featured panelists discussing various issues on the topic "Communicating Catastrophe".

The scientists said, of recent moves by North Korea under Kim Jong-un and the administration of Donald Trump in the U.S.: "Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions by both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation".

The Bulletin's executive chairman, Jerry Brown, said "the dangerous rivalry and hostility among the superpowers increases the likelihood of nuclear blunder...

[5] In 2016, Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute has stated that the "grab bag of threats" currently mixed together by the Clock can induce paralysis.

[25] Alex Barasch in Slate argued that "putting humanity on a permanent, blanket high-alert isn't helpful when it comes to policy or science" and criticized the Bulletin for neither explaining nor attempting to quantify their methodology.

[20] Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker harshly criticized the Doomsday Clock as a political stunt, pointing to the words of its founder that its purpose was "to preserve civilization by scaring men into rationality".

Keith Payne wrote 2010 in the National Review that the Clock overestimated the effects of "developments in the areas of nuclear testing and formal arms control".