I also think adtech corrupting AI as well is inevitable, but I dread for that future. Chatbots are much more personal than websites, and users are expected to give them deeply personal data. Their output containing ads would be far more effective at psychological manipulation than traditional ads are. It would also be far more profitable, so I'm sure that marketers are salivating at this opportunity, and adtech masterminds are hard at work to make this a reality already.
The repercussions of this will be much greater than we can imagine. I would love to be wrong, so I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
I hope local models remain viable. I don't think ever expanding the size is the way forward anyway.
It's not really about suppressing the knowledge, it's about suppressing people talking about it and making it a point in the media etc. The CCP knows how powerful organised people can be, this is how they came to power after all.