How would that work? In theory, not only to the laws of your resident country apply, but also the laws of country hosting the website and the country of the company owning the ISP to name just a few. The whole thing is basically unworkable and anyone with access to an admin account on the computer can set up an account with any age they wish, but politicians do not care.

Except that the laws may differ on who is an adult in each jurisdiction and they will make the responsibility of the operating system manufacturer to keep track of all that. Once the government starts taking over the responsibilities that should be those of a parent, the sky is the limit.

Because the laws of several countries are being changed to say that it is. Politicians rarely care about the actual effects of their actions only the perception by the fraction of the population who support them.

Which raises the obvious question. Why are you spending so much on something that cannot be trusted to do what it is supposed to do? A low-level human employee, who did these things, would be fired immediately. What makes you think that the other programs are more reliable. The evidence suggests that they are just better at lying about it.

That sounds unfortunately likely.

When will bot traffic overload the system to the point where it collapses. Also, what are the AIs likely to do, when they start getting vast numbers of cannot connect messages.

So, of the order of a 100 tons per person. About 10 to 20 moon flights. Not perhaps impossible, but incredibly expensive and you also have to provide water and air. Those could presumably be found on the moon, but the infrastructure to collect them would be another considerable investment. If I was seriously considering this, the first thing I would do, is build a linear accelerator (at high altitude) with a nuclear reactor to power it. That might make it practical to send significant weight of material into space (unlike rockets). However, the potential to use such a system as a weapon would create issues with building it.

Blame the news media, we can only comment on what is out there.

Hot oil in low gravity sounds like a bad idea.

Five percent or one percent it is still not practical. Calculate the weight of a hectare of soil a few centimeters deep and the amount of soil needed to grow food for one person for a year.

I always preferred the Terry Pratchett version where the turtle was swimming through space, and they were concerned whether it was a male or female turtle. Think about it.

They are just assuming that the data center frenzy will continue and that they will be able to push up prices because no one will be able to make enough chips to meet the inflated demand. At some point the boom must bust, but they are probably hoping it is far enough out to be the next guy's problem.

You can reasonably argue it either way. Having worked in the corporate world and watched companies manipulate their earnings to ensure that senior management gets their inflated bonusses, I have little confidence in company financial reports. With skillful accounting, it is fairly simple to move profits from one quarter or even one year to the next. Of course, that is not even considering outright accounting fraud, which I am afraid is a lot more common than we know.

If you can learn anything useful from a quarterly earnings report, I am impressed. There are so many ways of manipulating the numbers. Also, many industries have seasonal cycles, so earnings are often concentrated in one quarter, and the other reports tell you nothing. Companies should be required to report whenever they have a significant change in their financial condition, not on specific dates.

Perhaps for a time at a considerable cost in casualties, but so what. Iran is not shipping any oil out of there right now in any case. All they would be is a nice big target.