I really doubt they are, I'm an average programmer
My laptop is a working tool for professionals, if I use it as a dumb typewriter I don't really need modern generation CPUs, a Pentium 2 would be enough
Ram is a more pressing issue these days, given the amount of bloated software one has to run just to page a colleague about something (yes slack, I'm talking about you, but not only you...)
When I am at my computer working I want it to do things for me while I do something else effortlessly, without noticing something else is going on
If I have to watch it while it finishes the job, it would be just a glorified washing machine
And it means it is underpowered for my workload
That's why people usually need more power than the baseline, because the baseline is the human using it, the computer's job is not to just display pixels at command, it's much more than that
Imagine you are an administrative employee, you are typing a report on your laptop, you're doing real work BUT you're not doing real work on your laptop or to better put it your laptop is sitting idle most of the time which is not real work for it
Work is a physics concept, real work means there is force involved and energy consumed
If the energy is minimal or the force applied almost zero, there is almost zero work done
> real work means there is force involved and energy consumed
See my reply earlier in the thread. I think the primary source of contention here is that you assume everyone should only think of the definition you give for the phrase "real work".
These machines have become very capable. If we don't move the goalposts, they can be working machines.