This epilogue synthesizes the book’s central arguments by offering a critical and forward-looking roadmap for democratic renewal in the age of GenAI and surveillance capitalism. Anchored in Richard R. Nelson’s metaphor of “the Moon and the Ghetto,” the chapter revisits the paradox at the heart of contemporary innovation systems: while AI and frontier technologies attract immense investment and geopolitical focus, deep socio-economic divides and democratic decay remain largely unaddressed. Drawing on foundational thinkers in innovation systems and institutional political economy—such as Nelson, Lundvall, Breznitz, Polanyi, Schumpeter, Mazzucato, Jacobs, and Castells—the chapter reframes AI economics as a public good and outlines pathways for reclaiming data sovereignty and civic agency. Key proposals include mission-oriented innovation systems that prioritize public value, institutional mechanisms for algorithmic accountability, and multi-scalar governance frameworks that transcend Westphalian limitations. It advocates transitioning from extractive data models to civic data commons—via data cooperatives and federated infrastructures—and calls for participatory smart city procurement, translocal algorithm registries, and civic-driven digital education. Ultimately, the epilogue insists that confronting the asymmetries of AI governance demands more than technical fixes; it requires collective institutional imagination. As such, it serves as an invitation to co-design a democratic social contract for datafied futures grounded in justice, inclusion, and solidarity.