— Cyberdyne Systems is not a real company · The index is terminator.fyi

The Terminator Index

Tracking humanity’s progress on the Terminator Problem
44 COMPONENTS
The Index · TI
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awaiting first reading
0 — the state of the art in 1984.
1000 — a canonical T‑800 could be built today.
Judgment Day · anniversary
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Skynet became self‑aware at 2:14 a.m. EDT, 29 August 1997.
That was — ago today. The index has been running for — of them without incident.
The Terminator Problem: everything we need to solve with science and engineering until we can create The Terminator. After Ryan North, computational linguist

Lex

The column · one component, priced
Lex · Terminator Problem

The index opens

Forty-four problems, one number, and a great deal of honest arithmetic

The Terminator Index prices humanity’s progress towards a machine that does not exist and, on current evidence, will not shortly. It is compiled the way an equity index is: many underlying components, each independently assessed, weighted by how load‑bearing they are, rolled into a single level.

The methodology is deliberately unkind. A technology scores against what the films actually require, not against last year’s version of itself. Fielded systems that deliver two per cent of the canonical specification are marked at two per cent. Most of the index is very low, and the parts that are not are rarely the parts anyone expects.

Sub-indices

Weighted roll-up by category · same 0–1000 scale
Awaiting research returns.

Constituents

Click any row for canon, gap, evidence and movers
Index initialising
44 components under review
No component is published until its evidence resolves

The tape

Dated evidence, newest first · every point of movement is attributable

Methodology

The arithmetic, in the open

The level

progress = (TRL / 9) × spec_fraction

TI = 1000 × Σ(w·progress) / Σ(w)

Forty-four components, fourteen categories, total weight 313. Weights are editorial and published; they say how load-bearing a component is for actually fielding a Terminator, not how interesting it is.

TRL — Terminator Readiness Level

A one-to-nine ladder mirroring NASA’s Technology Readiness Level, applied to a different destination. One is “the physics permits it”. Nine is “in routine operational use, at the required specification”. We score the best demonstrated system in the world, not the median one.

Spec fraction

How much of the canonical requirement the best real system meets. This is where the honesty lives. A fielded, mature technology that delivers three per cent of what the films demand scores 0.03, and the comparison is stated in the entry so you can argue with it.

What moves it

Dated, cited, resolving evidence — and nothing else. Papers, spec sheets, benchmark tables, filings, regulation. Retractions and failed demonstrations move it down. An index that only rises is not an index; it is marketing.