Amazon Discovered Child Sex Abuse Content in AI Training Data

Amazon.com Inc. reported hundreds of thousands of pieces of content last year that it believed included child sexual abuse, which it found in data gathered to improve its artificial intelligence models. Though Amazon removed the content before training its models, child safety officials said the company has not provided information about its source, potentially hindering law enforcement from finding perpetrators and protecting victims.

Throughout last year, Amazon detected the material in its AI training data and reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC. The organization, which was established by Congress to field tips about child sexual abuse and share ...