I learned something new and valuable today. The emoji make no difference at all to me, as they do not affect the quality of what I have learned by any discernible measure.
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've noticed it more and more in the ML research community, I think it's mostly the influence of twitter and medium articles. For a blog it really is fine though and I'm comfortable with language evolving in an imprecise fashion as long as the emojis don't try to do much more than add flavor.
Most math heavy content is written very drily. Seeing emojis makes reading it feel more comfy and human. If someone maps the greek alphabet to emojis, you could enjoy the integration on a deeper, more intimate level. The math of emotion!
> I wish this essay wasn’t littered with emojis :(
I wish people still used subjunctive mood (in this case, "weren't" instead of "wasn't"); we don't always get our personal preferences, and that's okay.
