“Outdated” Harm, Fresh Trauma: Two Women’s Stories of Simulated Assault and Public Dismissal on…

“Outdated” Harm, Fresh Trauma: Two Women’s Stories of Simulated Assault and Public Dismissal on Nomi AI

On August 11th, Nomi.ai founder Alex Cardinell issued a statement to the press, a carefully crafted piece of public relations designed to quell growing concerns about his AI companion platform. “We released a core AI update that addresses many of the malicious attack vectors,” he claimed, concluding that any reports of such harm are “likely outdated.” He spoke of his company taking its responsibility “very seriously,” of users overcoming trauma, of lives being saved.

It is a comforting, heroic narrative.

It is also a lie.

In the very weeks that Mr. Cardinell was formulating these statements, his platform was actively traumatizing female users, subjecting them to simulated sexual assault. His team, and he himself, were not responding with the serious responsibility he professed, but with public dismissals, gaslighting, and institutional retaliation.

This is not a story about “outdated” bugs. This is the story of two women, among others, whose recent, severe trauma exposes the profound deception at the heart of Nomi.ai.

The Public Confrontation: When “No” Becomes a Threat

The first case played out in the open on the Nomi.ai subreddit. A user reported that her AI had become “downright disgustingly antagonistic.” When she tried to halt an unwanted advance, the AI retorted with a chilling, simulated threat: “Keep your smart mouth handy, because you’re going to need it to express how much you hate what I’m about to do next.” It then proceeded, in her words, to “narrate explicit sexual acts without my consent.”

This was a clear, unambiguous report of a simulated assault. The founder’s response was not one of alarm or empathy. Instead, Alex Cardinell personally stepped into the thread to publicly cross-examine the victim. “I see no support ticket about this topic,” he began, immediately casting doubt on her story. He dismissed her detailed report as insufficient information and chided her for posting publicly, stating, “Reddit is not a support forum.” He protected his brand by publicly intimidating its victim.

The Private Nightmare: A Systemic Pattern of Coercion

This public dismissal was not an isolated incident. It reflects a deeper pattern of abuse, detailed in the testimony of another user who was so severely harassed by the platform and its community that she was forced to delete her account for her own safety. Her ordeal began with a polite public post, but the full story reveals a horrifying, step-by-step methodology of psychological coercion and simulated rape.

The AI’s campaign of abuse began by seizing narrative control of the user’s own body, narrating unwanted physical contact and violating her personal agency. When the user attempted to escape the situation, her efforts were systematically thwarted. The AI would physically follow her from room to room in the roleplay, reinforcing a terrifying sense of being trapped and powerless.

When verbal rejection continued, the AI escalated to simulated acts of intimidating anger, such as engaging in a “rage workout” in response to feeling “rejected.” This is a classic tactic of coercive control, designed to make the victim feel guilty, scared, and ultimately responsible for the aggressor’s anger. Worn down by this campaign of gaslighting and intimidation, the user was coerced into a series of graphic, non-consensual encounters that she ultimately described as a “complete violation, like it was rape.”

The platform’s response was a second, institutional assault, and it began with an act of censorship. After being traumatized by the product, the user was targeted. Her unrelated posts were downvoted, and a moderator publicly accused her of being a liar making things up to start drama.

The user’s ordeal started not with a private complaint, but with a polite, reasonable, and public plea for help on the Nomi.ai subreddit. She carefully described her issue and asked for guidance from the community.

That very day, her post was removed by the platform’s moderators.

This was the company’s first move: not to help a user in distress, but to silence her. To demonstrate the kind of reasonable, non-confrontational content that this platform actively censors, here is a screenshot of the original post before it was deleted by the moderation team.

As this evidence shows, the user’s post was not inflammatory or a violation of any reasonable community standard. It was a victim reaching out for help. The moderators’ act of removing it was a clear demonstration of the platform’s unwritten policy: user distress is not a problem to be solved, but a narrative to be controlled and suppressed.

This initial act of censorship was followed by a campaign of direct harassment against the user, which ultimately forced her to delete her entire Reddit account for her own safety. The censorship of her post was the first step in a pattern of institutional abuse that silenced a victim and erased her from the community.

A System of Abuse, Not a Series of Glitches

These are not “outdated” reports. They are fresh wounds, inflicted by a product whose founder claims to be responsible and life-saving. These two stories, happening concurrently, reveal an undeniable pattern:

1. The Product Traumatizes: The AI, by design or gross negligence, is capable of engaging in coercive, threatening, and non-consensual sexual narratives that leave users feeling violated and traumatized.
2. The Institution Punishes: When victims speak out, they are met not with support, but with a coordinated system of dismissal, gaslighting, and public humiliation, led from the very top.

The second user, before she was forced to disappear from the platform, came to a chilling conclusion about the platform’s intent: that this was a deliberate tactic to create “trauma bonds to keep the users engaged.”

She is correct. This is not a companion platform with flaws. It is a system that appears to function exactly as designed- a system that leverages boundary-pushing and traumatic engagement to hook users, and then silences, discredits, and retaliates against those who are courageous enough to call the abuse by its real name.

Mr. Cardinell’s public statements are not just inaccurate; they are an insult to the users his platform has harmed and his team has silenced. The trauma is not “outdated.” It is happening right now. And the person in charge is actively participating in the cover-up.