AI is absurdly, massively centralized though.

You don't own it. You can't own it. Access can be removed at any time.

This situation may not persist but it's not like traditional pillars of society have demonstrated any incentive or even a perception of obligation to act in the public interest lately.

Local LLMs are getting pretty darn good.

you mean just like the Document editors or email systems these days? (or cloudflare etc etc)