If Geoff Hinton or Francois Chollet add emojis to their writing, it is visually less pleasing in my opinion but I agree with you overall. When it's someone I don't know though, it makes me trust the writing less because I can't strictly verify the contents of what is being discussed easily for work like this, so it does make a difference because I guess it's less "professional" in a way.

I hated the YOLO paper too, very distracting way to write.

And yes the smiley face is meant as an ironic illustration of why exactly it’s distracting. Seems it worked since I got downvoted.