Hermes data-routing allegations spark dispute over Chinese AI models

X user adacyborg11 alleged on Nov. 1 that Hermes sends users’ data to Chinese labs through a Nous portal offering free tokens from Chinese models. In a Nov. 2 quote-post, the critic also alleged that Nous promoted Chinese models with discounted subscription codes for Minimax and asked whether China had paid for user data to be harvested for training. The question did not establish that any payment or harvesting occurred.

Another participant, displayed in the posts as account 1365020011123773442, said that model providers that train on paid usage are automatically blocked from OpenRouter on their account. The participant also said almost no popular Chinese model is served from China, while allowing that some free models might be. Those statements describe the participant’s account and do not settle where particular Hermes requests went.