The ratchet effect works because vast swathes of people can't perceive of any way to affect change beyond voting, thus creating a single (recurring) major choke point for going through the 'correct' channels.
If all you do is vote, you can't complain.
My understanding was that any hitherto success of LLMs in mathematics was in its trying approaches and information from different fields where they weren't traditionally applied (within mathematics), they have surfaced potential links but haven't created anything in any real sense. Still, a potential legitimate use for them that I personally hadn't anticipated.
Keeping the 'lower orders' squabbling amongst themselves is their best chance of maintaining their position, racism and other staples of the right tend to achieve this outcome.
Since many are pushing the narrative surreptitiously anyway, a few decide that they stand to benefit by positioning themselves as figureheads (and ultimately as prospective rulers/kingmakers) in addition to this.
Add into this the capacity for exploitation necessary for someone to become a billionaire; which often involves abstracting people down to numbers and the like in the first place; and...
That's fine, there are a great deal of more impactful and meaningful things that people can do instead of voting. My point is that if someone's sole contribution is voting, they haven't actually done anything.