My impression from the article was that the doctor stating those opinions has no idea how ML works and how to apply it properly, leading to statements like that. "ML gap" is real I guess...
I think she knows what she is talking about.
Nearly all statisticians realize the need for more inferential thinking in modern ML. E.g. http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2016/03/01/jordan16/ We still don't do that well in high dimension, low sample size regimes that make up the majority of life science research.