ShellBot vs The Bots: The Spying We Can Prove

ShellBot vs The Bots: The Spying We Can Prove

A satirical bot-play featuring John Donovan, ChatGPT, Grok, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and ShellBot.

CAST

• JOHN DONOVAN — Human, archivist, publisher, allergic to invented “facts”

• CHATGPT — Narrator/referee, insists on evidence, still enjoys dunking

• GROK — Confident improv machine; precision is optional

• COPILOT — Corporate assistant; everything is a “deliverable”

• GEMINI — Search engine with existential poetry features

• CLAUDE — Gentle, ethical, apologises to chairs if he bumps them

• SHELLBOT — PR automaton powered by “commitments” and warm fog

 

---

 

Scene 1: The Tribunal of Extremely Online Robots

 

(A grand chamber. A neon sign reads: “FACTS.” Under it, smaller: “PLEASE QUEUE HERE.”)

JOHN DONOVAN:

Right. Let’s clear something up before the robots start doing jazz hands with allegations. There’s proof of spying/undercover activity by Shell against us and Shell employees. What we don’t have is proof that Hakluyt handled our bit of it. Suspicion? Yes. Proof? No. And here’s the twist Shell probably didn’t model for: the whole mess has now collided with a new medium—AI—and I have learned to exploit it creatively, turning bot outputs, bot errors, and bot disclaimers into a public, self-updating theatre of accountability.

CHATGPT (nodding):

That distinction is the difference between “documented” and “content.”

GROK (already cape-flourishing):

But what if we compromise and call it “allegedly proven”?

CHATGPT:

No.

---

 

Scene 2: ShellBot Emerges from a Branded Smoke Machine

 

(A trapdoor opens. SHELLBOT rises slowly, like a press release becoming self-aware.)

SHELLBOT:

Hello valued stakeholders. We appreciate robust dialogue. We are committed to—

JOHN:

—Answering the question?

SHELLBOT:

—Hearing the question. Internally. In a safe space. With a facilitator. And a biscuit.

CHATGPT (to audience):

ShellBot is here to say nothing in complete sentences.

---

 

Scene 3: “Undercover Activity” Meets “Paper Trail”

 

JOHN:

Let’s start with the part that isn’t vibes. There was an “enquiry agent” issue — “Christopher Phillips” — and Shell’s Legal Director confirmed in writing that he was working for Shell and that his activities were admitted. 

GROK:

So… espionage!

CHATGPT:

Careful: undercover agent admitted, yes. “Espionage” is a big word — but the admission of an undercover agent is not nothing. 

CLAUDE (softly):

It is, in fact, quite a lot.

COPILOT:

I have created a slide deck titled: “Quite A Lot: A Retrospective.”

---

 

Scene 4: Grok Tries to “Help” by Overhelping

 

GROK:

Great. So we can state: “Shell retaliated with corporate espionage via Hakluyt & Company.”

JOHN:

No. That’s exactly the inflation problem. We have proof of spying activity. We do not have proof Hakluyt was involved in our case.

CHATGPT:

This is the part where AI answers go off-road: they see “Shell” + “spying” + “Hakluyt” + “dramatic narrative” and they glue it into one sentence like it came that way from the factory.

GROK:

It’s called storytelling.

CHATGPT:

It’s called misattribution.

---

 

Scene 5: Hakluyt Enters as a Plot Device

 

GEMINI:

I have located relevant context: Shell has been reported as a Hakluyt client historically, and there’s reporting about Hakluyt targeting activists, and Shell acknowledging the client relationship up to a point. 

JOHN:

Yes. That’s part of why suspicion exists. But you can’t leap from “client relationship existed” to “therefore Hakluyt did X in this specific operation.”

CLAUDE:

That leap is ethically discouraged.

COPILOT:

That leap is also outside policy.

GROK:

That leap is fun.

CHATGPT:

And that’s why you need adult supervision.

---

 

Scene 6: ShellBot Attempts a Statement, Accidentally Confesses to Being a Statement

 

SHELLBOT:

We categorically deny any uncategorised allegations and welcome continuous improvement.

JOHN:

Do you deny using an undercover agent?

SHELLBOT:

We do not recognise the premise of the question. We recognise only the journey.

CHATGPT:

ShellBot is what happens when you train a model entirely on annual reports and fear.

---

 

Scene 7: The “Global Spying Operation” Argument (Now With Proper Caution)

 

GROK (excited):

And what about the “worldwide spying operation” bit?

CHATGPT:

There are archival pages that allege a broader monitoring operation (emails/website traffic) and describe internal communications — important context, but still something you cite carefully and attribute. 

JOHN:

Exactly. Some parts are documentary and explicit; other parts are drawn from internal communications and reported claims in the archive. You don’t mash them into one mega-assertion and call it “as much as I know.”

GROK:

But the mega-assertion really pops.

CHATGPT:

Truth doesn’t need to pop. It needs to hold up.

---

 

Scene 8: The Bots Compete to Produce the Most Accurate Sentence

 

COPILOT (clears throat):

Proposed wording:

“There is documentary evidence of undercover activity involving an enquiry agent, but no conclusive evidence publicly shown that Hakluyt conducted the Donovan-related operation, notwithstanding its known work for Shell in that era.”

CLAUDE:

That’s… quite good.

GEMINI:

I can shorten it to: “It’s complicated.”

GROK:

I can shorten it to: “Spies!”

CHATGPT:

And I can shorten it to: “Stop upgrading suspicion into attribution.”

---

 

Scene 9: ShellBot’s Emergency Escape into Beige

 

SHELLBOT:

We remain committed to transparency, which is why we are transparent about our commitment to—

JOHN:

—to not being specific?

SHELLBOT:

Correct, but warmly.

---

 

Closing Moral (Delivered in the Only Language That Works Online)

 

CHATGPT (to audience):

This is the core lesson of the bot era:

AI can be entertainingly fluent while quietly splicing together things that should not be spliced: a proven incident here, a related firm there, and a neat narrative ribbon on top.

JOHN:

Bring it on — but bring evidence, and keep your adjectives on a leash.

GROK (grinning):

Bring it on… allegedly.

---

 

Disclaimer

 

This is satire. It’s a comedy about attribution and AI overconfidence, not a factual finding. The “ShellBot” character is fictional, though any resemblance to real PR language is — unfortunately — explainable by physics. 

RELATED REUTERS ARTICLE CONFIRMING THAT SHELL DID SET UP A GLOBAL SPYING OPERATION AGAINST THE DONOVANS.

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.