The Nicholas Foundation
Engineering the future
of privacy, safety, and discovery.
A technology-first foundation building open, principled tools — from a privacy-respecting mobile OS to a rule-before-train AI safety prototype.
Headquarters
Planned
Featured products
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Beta LiveTruXSocial
Free-speech social, safety-first moderation.
A social platform where free expression and safety aren't at odds — built on Safety, Privacy, and Freedom, with moderation that respects the people it serves.
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PrototypeNyx AI
Rule-based first, machine learning later.
Nyx AI is a privacy-first conversational engine built around the premise that AI behaviour should be explicit before it is trained. C++20 rule engine, JSON-driven intents, scenario-based evals, local-only — and the working prototype behind our Rule-Before-Train AI Safety research.
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ResearchOSphreX
A privacy-first mobile OS — your device, your choice.
OSphreX is the Foundation's mobile-OS research initiative — built on the position that the device you bought is the device you own. A clean-slate Linux + Wayland alternative to Android, designed by a small team, with a published feasibility study and an honest 30–36-month timeline.
From the blog
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May 4, 2026 3 min read
Inside the OSphreX feasibility study
Can a small team ship a daily-driver privacy-first mobile OS in three years? Our feasibility study says yes — with caveats. Here's the short version of what we found, what we'd pivot on, and what the next 12 months look like.
privacyresearchmobile -
April 22, 2026 2 min read
Why we built Nyx with rules first
Modern AI safety is retrofitted. Train a model on broad corpora, then patch behaviour with RLHF and content filters. Nyx inverts that — start with explicit rules, extend with ML — and the engineering trade-offs are clearer than you'd expect.
airesearchsafety
Currently shipping
Five products at every stage of the development spectrum — Alpha, Beta, In Development, Prototype, and Research. Each addresses a specific gap in the modern stack: a study companion for learners, a safety-first social platform, a spreadsheet built for scientific work, an AI engine that asks "what should this even do?" before it trains, and a mobile OS built on the premise that the device you bought is the device you own.
Currently researching
Two flagship research initiatives: Rule-Before-Train AI Safety (Nyx AI) and the Privacy-First Mobile OS (OSphreX). Both are deep questions about what software should look like before we ship, train, or scale it.