You are mistaken. The future is defined by the common man on the steet. Those are the same people who use Whatsapp, Facebook and instagram accounts heavily and regularly. They will soon become the biggest drivers of AI adaption.
The techies are drop in the ocean. You may build a new tech or device, but the adaption is driven by the crowd who just drift away without a pinch of resistance.
But then the pinch of resistance makes an island of likewise thinkers. And there doesn't need to be more than .05% of techies to make great products that otherwise anti-correlate with what people claim as inevitable.
We should stop with over-generalization like "The future is defined by the common man on the street." It's always much more complex than that. To every trend, there is a counter-trend (even sometimes alt-trends that are not actually opposites).
Because the average media incompetent Joe is easy to influence. Just spread some tinfoil hat theories, or fearmonger publicly and they have nothing else to talk about. They wouldn't even understand how bad big tech is if you forced them to research for a month. Humans are way more stupid than we believe (just look at all the people who'd love to cuddle a wild bear they meet in Yellowstone). That we managed to get on top of the food chain is a miracle.
I don't understand people who use Instagram. I installed it for one specific person, and from opening the app to closing it, there's nothing but a nonstop torrent of pure garbage. I don't talk to that person much any more.
The techies are drop in the ocean. You may build a new tech or device, but the adaption is driven by the crowd who just drift away without a pinch of resistance.