I’m not really sure what the author is trying to do here. The way he plays with the meaning of words, like “culling the outlier” is literary interesting. But it is also actively harmful to understanding or bettering the issues raised.
“AI” is interpreted as “algorithmic inferences.” This paves over any of the technical distinctions between statistics, ML, AI, and neural nets. In the current hype, the term AI is often narrowed down to mean neural nets but the author widens the meaning. In the text, “AI” includes any kind of bureaucratic or rule-based decision-making.
The effect is to transfer responsibility away from decision-makers, organizations, and even society, at large, to a vaguely understood new technology.
I can see that this could be welcome to these decision-makers and organizations. And so it has the potential to attract funding from them. Perhaps that is the point.