I see what Sutton said as a "statistical learning and artificial intelligence" researcher in line with what the authors of the physics paper presented as "an application of learning research to computational science and engineering, CSE, surrounding physics".
CSE researchers did not sit down and wait for AI researchers to learn the bitter lesson before they resumed their work.
CSE research goes on independent of whether AI/GOFAI/ML has a winter, a summer, an ice age, or a global warming.
It just so happens that in light of the recent progress of AI/ML, specifically 2012 to 2019, they see the utility of incorporating a tiny bit of ML to their vast array of methods.
The paper shared in this thread is merely another attempt to advance such an incorporation. If it doesn't pan out, they go back to doing CSE on physics without any AI or ML.