> but going from non-success to pariah, what is the need?

Not sure "need" is the appropriate word here.

Grab anyone in who has worked on AI in the last 30 years, and pronounce the word "Schmidhuber" and watch the face of you interlocutor: you'll either get an eyroll or a smirk, but rarely a lively discussion on what he's "invented".

Nothing vitriolic about describing reality.