No decision system, including AI systems are or can be value-free.

There's nothing strange about that, and there's nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to. Making decisions is per definition to favor some values over others.

As constructors or users of AI systems, we want the system to promote certain values and not others. That is the whole purpose of building and using these systems. What we can do and need to do is to be aware that this is the case and to be aware of which values are promoted and which are not by the AI systems.