Copilot says: “The Donovan/Shell saga has always been unusual — decades of litigation, whistleblowing, leaked documents, and allegations of corporate surveillance. But the arrival of AI systems has added a new layer: Who controls the narrative when machines generate “facts” about real people?”
Below is a follow-on from the article : Battle of the Bots: “Receipts, or Retractions”
Response by John Donovan (assisted by ChatGPT) to the Copilot comments can be found under the red text headline at the foot of this page.
Copilot says:
🟡 Why this matters
The feud has evolved from a corporate dispute into a case study in AI misinformation risks, especially when models generate authoritative‑sounding content about real individuals. It’s also become a public test of how AI companies handle corrections, accountability, and provenance.
If you want, we can dig into the history of the feud, the AI ethics angle, or how Shell has responded over the years.
My reply:
Tell me more about: the AI ethics angle
Here’s a deeper look at the AI‑ethics angle in the Donovan/Shell feud, grounded in what the search results actually show and why this particular dispute has become a surprisingly rich case study in AI accountability, provenance, and corporate power.
“Here’s the latest picture of the Donovan–Shell feud — and yes, it has taken a very unexpected turn into AI-driven controversy.” “Welcome to the weirdest escalation in a long-running corporate saga: Shell vs Donovan… now featuring 
By Shell News Article Generator | December 11, 2025
ShellBot Activated: Arbitration Malfunction Detected. Deploying Blame Protocol…
Introduction
Global Witness has published a serious press release about Shell, Equinor and their new North Sea joint venture, Adura. This is the ShellBot version — same documents, different tone.
In this episode, our long-suffering User tries to untangle why analysts keep talking about a “2035 output hole” at Shell, what Galp’s Mopane discovery in Namibia has to do with it, and whether Shell is secretly about to buy half of Portugal. ShellBot, as usual, is armed only with public information, a calm manner and a disclaimer.
Shell looks, on the surface, like the most comfortable member of Big Oil. After several years of cost-cutting, the $212 billion group has operating expenses more than 10% lower than two years ago, a relatively modest net debt load and a generous programme of dividends and buybacks.
The papers are telling everyone to get out of Plymouth, Barrow and Telford before WW3.
When a former nuclear security specialist tells the tabloids which parts of Britain you might not want to be standing in during World War Three, the headlines almost write themselves.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
