Recently, the popular project Hermes Agent from the Silicon Valley AI lab Nous Research has been embroiled in a controversy over architectural plagiarism. The Chinese AI team EvoMap publicly posted an article accusing Nous Research of systematically copying the architecture of its self-evolving engine Evolver, without any references in their public materials. Currently, this accusation has received nearly 190,000 views on social platforms and has become a hot topic in the AI developer community.
EvoMap's detailed technical comparison report shows that there are multiple highly overlapping core logics between the two: including the logical framework of 10-step core evolution cycles, the functional roles of the three-layer memory system, and the closed-loop mechanism for automatically extracting experience assets after task completion (named Gene/Capsule and SKILL.md respectively).
Although the programming languages differ (Node.js vs. Python), 12 pairs of core terminology architecture relationships are said to be completely consistent. Looking at the timeline, the Evolver protocol was made public on February 1st, while the self-evolving module repository and Skills system of Hermes were released in early March, leaving a time window of about 24 to 39 days.
In response to the accusations, Teknium, co-founder of Nous Research, stated that he had never heard of the project and criticized the comparison report as "brainless." Although the official account claimed that the main repository was created last July, it was immediately refuted by EvoMap, which pointed out that the self-evolving module repository being accused was actually created on March 9th this year. This incident not only exposed the technical ownership disputes in fast-paced open-source projects but also reflected the increasingly intense homogenization competition in the field of AI self-evolution architecture. Both sides are still engaging in a verbal battle over the repository creation time and the originality of the technology.
