If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with global filters or film emulation.

The algorithm doesn't, but the results absolutely have.

Celebrated photographers "styles" can be two things:

a) a way of seeing (composition, sense of space, etc, etc)

b) a specific look, based on favorite film stock, preferred lighting schemes, post-processing etc.

This can immitate the second. Which you can also get, with a more manual process, from global filter/film emulation, like VSCO.

The local vs global application of the filter doesn't have as much impact in the final output. It's just a slightly more accurate (b).

It's not just that this can emulate the second. Sometimes VSCO Film is the second, or at least the foundation for the second. It's kind of swept the modern photography world by storm.

That said, to the grand-parent poster: I realize that it isn't the same thing as described in the paper! However, it is available now, and I was using phrases such as "not entirely unlike" which shouldn't exactly inspire a sense of precise equivalence...