It is silly. The guy may just want to avoid standing out or drawing attention to themselves. "I" is more appropriate for any solo paper. If the author really ca

It is silly. The guy may just want to avoid standing out or drawing attention to themselves. "I" is more appropriate for any solo paper. If the author really can't bring themselves to write "I", then they should just avoid the first-person entirely. (Or maybe this is a field-specific thing. This guy is in a math dept, and I can only speak from the perspective of the social sciences)