No it’s totally unrelated to inference.
It’s added to the code when the frontend (parser) need a variable that can be mutated by multiple functions. (and in the case you show I’m 90% sure there was an issue for it). It does hurt inference but it is NOT caused by bad inference.
For the user, it’s basically the same as Base.RefValue{Any}. You should not use it which is why it’s not in the document.