There are fundamental differences. Many people expect a positive gradient of quality from AI overhaul of projects. For translating back and forth, it is obvious from the outset that there is a negative gradient of quality (the Chinese whispers game).
200 times?? No, I don't think anybody expected that to produce something good. It's just a other attention grabbing, "I did a thing a ridiculous amount of times!" stunt.
You're assuming the author did this only for audience engagement(dozens, nay, scores of blog hits!), and not to gratify their own intellectual curiosity? Sometimes you just want to see what happens.