I think your parent is alluding to the fact things could be automated in biological research but aren't because of the disincentives; and that at the same time things in tech are more amenable to automation and often parts of it are indeed automated.

Yes, it's all a means to an end, but how much time one wants to spend in the "means" (which can get extremely repetitive, apparently) is what counts for the parent (I'm supposing).