It's hardly surprising that these people are out of touch when they're constantly surrounded in a bubble of yes-men, cultish AI sycophants, VC investors and other "dark enlightenment" enthusiasts.
It's a pathology, really. A kind of shared delusion in service of global capital.
They are referring to some fringe "tax protester" conspiracy theories which dispute that the 16th amendment was properly ratified. You can read about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_Sixteenth_Amendment_arguments#Sixteenth_Amendment_ratification
Suffice it to say, these 'theories' have been largely rejected, including by the states themselves, and by the SCOTUS.
They already do. ("They" meaning AI generally, I don't know about Claude or ChatGPT's bots specifically). There are a number of tools server admins can use to help deal with this.
See also:
Careful how you phrase this. The right wing anti-woke crusaders will retort "oh, so you're saying this level of CO2 is natural after all?"