As for the data transfer costs, any network data originating from AWS that hits an external network (an end user or another region) typically will incur a charge. To quote their blog post:
A general rule of thumb is that all traffic originating from the internet into AWS enters for free, but traffic exiting AWS is chargeable outside of the free tier—typically in the $0.08–$0.12 range per GB, though some response traffic egress can be free. The free tier provides 100GB of free data transfer out per month as of December 1, 2021.
So you won’t be charged for incoming federated content, but serving content to the end user will count as traffic exiting AWS. I am not sure of your exact setup (AWS pricing is complex) but typically this is charged. This is probably negligible for a single-user instance, but I would be careful serving images from your instance to popular instances as this could incur unexpected costs.
Sadly it wasn’t a bid to open source the AI, rather than a bid for payment.