Federal officials once feared Amazon could train AI on government data

Even the government sometimes freaks out about changes to the terms and conditions. Documents obtained by Fast Company through a public records request show that officials of at least two federal agencies were, at least briefly, anxious about whether Amazon might have been allowed to train its AI using government data. The concerns appear to have been short lived, but the exchange highlights how dependent federal agencies have become on companies like Amazon to host government software and data. It also raises questions about whether officials always understand the terms they agree to when contracting with those companies. The exchange occurred in early 2024, when an IT official at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wrote to colleagues that Amazon had updated its terms “to allow usage of data outside your environment and even outside of U.S. soil.” The official, who worked in the agency’s Cloud Center of Excellence, had reviewed Amazon’s terms and several articles about the company’s potentially using customer data to train AI. He urged federal officials to “opt out” of allowing Amazon to train its AI on government data and described the issue as an “urgent potential dat…