Comment by danwills

The ratio of computer minutes per programmer-minute has indeed gone to an amazing number nowadays! I work in VFX (at RSP) and this fact is vividly illustrated for me all the time by the millions of thread-hours we go through on the renderfarm each week!

Despite all the astounding developments in AI/ML though, I still think there's still a critical need for the application of human/biological imagination and creativity. Sure the amount of leverage between thoughts and CPU cycles can be utterly giant now, but it doesn't seem to diminish the need (where performance or correctness/less-bugs are needed) for a full understanding of what the computer actually gets up to in the end.

For what it's worth, we do have an ML department at RSP and they are doing great! But I'm not sure we'd get very far if we tried to vibe-code the underlying pipeline, as it really requires full understanding of many interlocking pieces.