The statement I take issue with is that Sutton "is not to be celebrated or trusted". Which I can only interpret to mean that the speaker does not think that Sutton should be celebrated or trusted. (And they've chosen to state it in a kind of pompous way.) Which I think is too strong on both counts. I (and apparently the ACM) think that Sutton should be celebrated for his technical accomplishments. Also, I think he probably can be trusted on a lot of technical matters. Should he be trusted on matters of whether there need to be safeguards on AI research imposed by the state? Maybe not, but those are only a subset of all the matters.