future meaning of present tense

“It’s quite scary to think how these models can manipulate people’s
behaviour,” he says. “With Cambridge Analytica the scandal was really
about misuse of data. We’re not there yet, but when you have
self-learning models that can automate that process, that automation
puts it in a different category. We need to look at our value
structures, so that when we use the technology we are using the tools
to do things we want to do.”

I’m not sure whether the bolded part is talking about the future. I know it uses present tense verbs but the phrase, ‘we’re not there yet’ makes it sound like the future.
Is it okay to understand the author is talking about the things that are not yet happened?