I think this is more to do with the way software ecosystems develop in general. You don't need to know much about the actual implementation of databases or low-

I think this is more to do with the way software ecosystems develop in general. You don't need to know much about the actual implementation of databases or low-level programming to build a data-heavy application, and you don't need to know the complexities of graphics programming to render complex visuals to a screen. If you want to do research in any branch of ML, you are almost certainly going to need some strong mathematical foundations. At the same time, if you're more interested in applying existing architectures/models, the ecosystem has a lot of really amazing tools that will take you a very long way without requiring you to study statistical learning theory.