nigh
Explanation
This comic shows two sign-carrying doomsayers side by side. The traditional religious doomsayer holds a sign reading "THE END IS NIGH," while the tech-oriented doomsayer next to him holds a sign reading "THE END IS NIGH +/- 5 years."
The caption reads: "Have you noticed that the Singularity people are the first doomsayers to use error bars?"
The joke contrasts traditional apocalyptic prophecy (typically associated with religious figures proclaiming the end times with absolute certainty) with predictions about the technological Singularity -- the hypothetical point at which artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and triggers runaway change. Singularity proponents (like Ray Kurzweil) tend to come from scientific or engineering backgrounds and thus frame their predictions with the trappings of scientific rigor, including uncertainty ranges and error bars. The humor is that they are essentially doing the same thing as the street-corner prophet -- predicting the end of the world -- but dressing it up in scientific notation. The "+/- 5 years" makes the prediction sound more credible while still being fundamentally the same kind of unfalsifiable doomsaying.