I think the author is misguided by saying "we need more thoughtful, and more creative humans". It's as if the author is lamenting some lost productivity that we would have otherwise achieved as a society by now. Just like how human work naturally fills up the time allotted to it [1], programmers tend to use up the hardware resources to make their apps usable. If time was spent hyperoptimizing, it would not change the computing landscape moving forward. Maybe the author should look into algorithm design and CS research as a way to directly affect the future of computing efficiency.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law