Ray tracing and, more recently, path tracing, have been the goal of computer graphics (CG) developers for over 40 decades. In most cases, CG was dedicated to creating photorealistic images that were indistinguishable from real life. The exceptions were animations, fantasies, and special or visual effects known as VFX.
As desirable — and in some medical and enterprise cases, essential — as ray tracing is, it is an unlimited consumer of compute resources. Theoretically, a ray-traced image is never finished, but the point of diminishing returns can be realized. When such a point is selected, the image will have some compromise of quality, but not enough to make it useless.