This quote explains why the author thinks that it is a problem :

> with string theorists now virtually unemployable unless they can figure out how to rebrand as machine learning experts.

Their issue is (seemingly) not with the paper, but with the claim that these headlines feed a hype that attribute to string theory capabilities it doesn't have.

To be clear this is OP's argument, not mine. I am not sure I buy it, except perhaps for the fact that every other academic is expected to rebrand as an ML expert nowadays. It has more to do with ML hype than with string theory hype.