I think the connection is that the authors could convincingly write a paper on this connection, thus inflating the AI publication bubble, furthering their academic acumen and improving their chances of getting research grants or selective jobs in the field. Some other interests of the authors seem to be detecting exoplanets using AI and detecting birds through audio analysis.

Since nobody can really say what a good AI department does, companies seem to be driven by credentiallism, load up on machine learning PhDs and masters so they can show their board and investors that they are ready for the AI revolution. This creates economic pressure to write such papers, the vast majority of which will amount to nothing.