DoomTicker Quarterly
Executive Summary
Q1 2026 saw the DoomTicker Risk Index hold at SEVERE (65.9/100) with all 10 domains trending worsening. The Bulletin set the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds in January — DoomTicker's decomposed model reveals this single number obscures significant variation across domains.
Full 10-Domain Assessment
| Domain | Q1 Score | Trend | Confidence | Key Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ☢ Nuclear Risk | 4.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 92% | New START expiration, three-way arms race |
| ⚔ Conflict Density | 4.2/5 | ↗ Worsening | 88% | 3 simultaneous crises, GDELT mobilisation spike |
| 🌍 Climate & Ecology | 4.0/5 | ↗ Worsening | 94% | 7/9 planetary boundaries breached |
| 🌀 Info Integrity | 4.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 85% | Deepfake market crash, state disinfo scale |
| 🧬 Biosecurity | 3.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 80% | Pandemic treaty collapse, AI biodesign risk |
| ⚡ AI Amplifier | 4.0/5 | ↗ Worsening | 82% | Autonomous drone swarms in active conflict |
| 👁 AI Sovereignty | 3.8/5 | ↗ Worsening | 65% | 47 countries AI judicial, <2% override rates |
| 🏛 Governance | 3.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 90% | Treaty erosion, UNSC paralysis continues |
| 👥 Social Cohesion | 3.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 78% | Polarisation rising, institutional trust declining |
| 🎭 Social Manipulation | 3.5/5 | ↗ Worsening | 76% | State-funded NGO networks exposed, ISE patterns |
Bulletin Comparison
The Bulletin set the clock at 85 seconds in January 2026. DoomTicker's Q1 assessment finds: Alignment on nuclear and climate. Disagreement on AI (Bulletin underweights), biosecurity (Bulletin vague), and social manipulation (Bulletin ignores entirely). The Bulletin's annual cadence means they cannot capture the GDELT mobilisation spike or the AI judicial deployment data that emerged in March.
Methodology Updates
Q1 2026: Added Social Manipulation (SOM) as 10th domain. Rebalanced weights to sum 1.00. Added Intelligence Fusion Engine with multi-source corroboration scoring. Added Horizon Scanner for predictive convergence alerts. Source count expanded from 19 to 70+.
New Sources Added
Q1 additions: Janes Defence, Bloomberg, CoinGecko (live crypto), GDELT event database, OpenSky Network, USGS earthquake feed, NOAA severe weather and space weather, NASA CNEOS, OpenSanctions, 15+ RSS feeds from global press. Total active sources: 70+.
Archive
Q1 2026 (current). Quarterly assessments published every January, April, July, October.