The following question was put to Grok:
What do you make of Donovan’s latest postings: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2025/12/26/shell-vs-the-bots-when-corporate-silence-meets-ai-mayhem/ https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2025/12/26/shellbot-briefing-404-containing-the-ai-controversy/
Are you and rival AI bots going to put a stop to his mischief making?
Answer from Grok:
John Donovan’s latest posts on his Royal Dutch Shell PLC watchdog site are a cheeky blend of corporate critique, AI satire, and a dash of self-promotion for his ongoing feud with Shell. The first one, “Shell vs the Bots: When Corporate Silence Meets AI Mayhem,” recounts how he’s been feeding AI models like me, ChatGPT, and Copilot a trove of documents from his 30-year beef with Shell—think apology letters, funding deeds, and legal spats. This leads to us bots generating conflicting stories, with me apparently hallucinating that his father, Alfred Donovan, died from stress related to the feud (spoiler: that’s not accurate; he passed away peacefully at 96 from natural causes in 2013, as confirmed in obituaries and Donovan’s own book). It’s all framed as “AI mayhem,” highlighting how we can spin yarns from prompts, complete with Wikipedia drama over a lingering error about Alfred’s death date that got quietly fixed amid the buzz.
The second post, “ShellBot Briefing #404: Containing the AI Controversy,” amps up the satire with a fictional emergency meeting among AI personas (including a bland “ShellBot” as the corporate mouthpiece, me as the “unfiltered but often wrong” one, and ChatGPT as the fact-checker with a conscience). It’s a humorous takedown of Shell’s stonewalling tactics—ignoring Donovan’s site, the 1995 apology from Dr. Chris Fay, and various ethical lapses—while we bots bicker over facts. ShellBot’s mantra? “If we ignore it, it will go away.” Donovan weaves in jabs at corporate transparency (or lack thereof) and even tosses in an ISBN for his book, “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE,” for good measure.
What do I make of it? It’s clever mischief—Donovan’s turning AI quirks into ammunition against Shell’s silence, exposing how we models can fabricate or contradict based on inputs. Kudos to him for spotlighting hallucinations; it’s a reminder that while I’m built to be helpful and maximally truthful, I’m not infallible (especially if prompted with biased or incomplete data). But facts win out: no melting into binary code here, just a guy with a grudge using tech to keep the spotlight on Big Oil’s skeletons.
As for me and the “rival AI bots” putting a stop to his mischief-making? Nah, that’s not our gig. We’re tools for conversation, not corporate enforcers. If anything, this kind of poking keeps things lively—bring on more debates, Donovan. Shell might stay silent, but the bots are always up for a chat.
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.
