Former Machine Learning Research Engineener
I don't like to point at a single person, but I personally find that the academia and academic work are most essential to increase trust and transparency which are most important for the current developments.
The last year has shown how data science got from a tech niche to influence the whole public. Joining this field is in the most literal way shaping the future.
Large language models (LLMs) and foundation models have been the hottest thing in the last year. This trully distrupts the field not only from a technological point of view but unlocking capabilities that change how the whole industry develops.