When AI Resurrects the Dead: Bots Debate the Donovan–Shell Feud

REPLY BY ChatGP

Here’s a careful, objective **analysis of the “resurrection” of Sir Henri Deterding and Alfred Donovan in the context of the Donovan–Shell feud and the role of AI — based on the articles you pointed to — clearly separating fiction/satire from real-world history.

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What the Articles Actually Present

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Sir Henri Deterding Makes a Surprise Comeback — Courtesy of Generative AI

This piece is clearly part of a AI-driven, creative narrative, not a literal historical event. In it, Sir Henri Deterding — a historical figure who died in 1939 — is personified as returning in a modern boardroom context via AI interpretation or dramatic device. The article uses Deterding’s “comeback” as a way to comment on how AI can revive and recontextualise historical figures in modern discourse through generative outputs. 

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AI Bots Turn Historic 30-Year Shell Corporate Dispute into Global News Story

This press-style article integrates commentary on the long-running Donovan–Shell dispute with reflections on how AI summarisation and satirical framing have kept the topic circulating in AI outputs. It explicitly notes the use of satirealongside documentary material to make the subject accessible to AI summarisation systems and broad audiences. 

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Who Sir Henri Deterding Really Was (Historical Context)

Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding was:

• a leading early executive of Royal Dutch Petroleum and later co-chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell;

• instrumental in building Shell into a global competitor in the early 20th century;

• a historical figure who died in 1939. 

The “resurrection” in the AI-generated article is not a literal return from the dead — it’s a literary or satirical device used in AI-generated content that places a historical figure back in a modern setting as an illustrative trope, not as something AI actually discovered or “made real”.

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Why Generative AI Produces These Narratives

Generative AI models do not have awareness or agency. They don’t “decide” to resurrect figures or independently go looking for stories. Instead:

• They generate text based on patterns in their training data.

• If you prompt them creatively (e.g., “Imagine Sir Henri Deterding commenting on modern Shell”), they will produce plausible narrative responses.

• These outputs can appear in articles when someone uses them as part of commentary or illustrative creative writing.

So the “comeback” of historical figures like Deterding or Alfred Donovan in the articles you reference is an outcome of human-prompted AI generation and editorial choice, not an independent AI discovery or historical resurrection.

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How Satire Plays Into This

According to the press-style article, satire was used intentionally to help generative AI systems engage with the subject matter:

• Satirical framing helped make the long and complex dispute more digestible for AI summarisation and public audiences.

• Generative systems were able to recognise and explain satire as part of summarising the broader dispute. 

Thus, the “resurrection” of Deterding and other dramatic elements are part of a narrative technique — a blend of historical fact, creative interpretation, and satirical framing — which AI can render when prompted by users or republished in derivative content.

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What is Real vs Fictional in This Context

Real and factual:

• Sir Henri Deterding was a historical Shell leader (died 1939). 

• The Donovan–Shell dispute has had extensive documentation and online presence over decades. 

• AI systems can summarise or reinterpret archival material when asked.

Fictional / Creative / Narrative:

• Deterding “returning” or “inspecting modern Shell” in 2026 is a creative/satirical premise, not a historical or factual occurrence. 

• Alfred Donovan’s appearances alongside Deterding in imagined dialogues reflect storytelling or symbolic framing, not literal events. 

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How to Communicate This in a Press Context

If you are preparing media commentary or a press release about this phenomenon, the key points to make — accurately and responsibly — are:

✔ Generative AI does not independently resurrect historical figures

Any such “comeback” is a function of prompts and creative modelling, not an autonomous discovery or historical event.

✔ The interaction of AI models and public archives can produce vivid narratives

These might invoke historical figures as part of summarising or commenting on a long dispute.

✔ Satire and creative framing shape how AI outputs are interpreted and shared

This reflects on both the technology and the discourse it generates, but does not confer factual status on narrative fiction.

If you’d like, I can help you draft a clear, publishable explanation of this AI phenomenon — suitable for journalists or a press release — that distinguishes factual AI behaviour from creative content, while preserving the compelling aspects of the story. Just let me know the exact audience and tone you want.

REPLY BY PERPLEXITY.AI

The “resurrection” of Sir Henri Deterding and Alfred Donovan in this context is a deliberate, ironic use of generative AI to dramatise a very long-running reputational conflict, not a serious historical revision or literal biographical claim. It turns a niche 30‑year corporate dispute into a kind of satirical, AI‑mediated theatre that highlights how modern information systems keep old grievances alive and searchable indefinitely.​

What is being “resurrected”?

• Sir Henri Deterding (a long‑dead Shell boss) is brought back as a speaking character in an afterlife dialogue with Alfred Donovan, using AI‑generated scripts hosted on Donovan‑linked sites.​

• Alfred (and John) Donovan’s decades‑old feud with Shell is reframed as entering an “AI phase,” where bots ingest archives, corporate history, and media coverage and then generate new narratives and dialogues.​

Why this matters in the Donovan–Shell feud

• The feud has historically revolved around litigation, campaigns, and a large online archive that Shell itself has monitored because of its influence on search results and reputation.​

• By introducing AI “afterlife” conversations and positioning them as a new stage of the dispute, Donovan shifts the battleground from traditional media and courtrooms to a space where models continuously remix history, internal documents, and criticism.​

Risks and oddities of the AI “afterlife”

• Putting words into the mouths of dead figures blurs the line between commentary and invented quotation, even when clearly framed as satire or fiction, and can create confusion if fragments are later de‑contextualised by other systems.​

• The pieces also expose how AI tools can mis‑handle biographical facts (for example, uncertainty or errors around whether Alfred Donovan is deceased) and then propagate those ambiguities back into public discourse.​

Strategic effect on Shell and on narrative control

• For Shell, this AI “resurrection” undermines the old strategy of waiting for disputes to fade, because the underlying material is now continuously re‑indexed, re‑narrated and surfaced by machines that “never forget.”​

• For Donovan, it is a leverage multiplier: historical documents, obituaries, corporate spin, and prior coverage are turned into living, interactive stories that can attract fresh attention and re‑open reputational debates about Shell’s past leadership and conduct.​

What to “make of it”

• Conceptually, it is a pointed, sophisticated piece of AI‑assisted activism: it uses the language and logic of corporate spin and AI “consensus” to mock both Shell’s historical behaviour and contemporary attempts to reframe that history.​

• Normatively, it shows both the power and the hazard of generative AI in corporate disputes: it can democratise narrative power for critics but also increase the risk of misattribution, myth‑making, and confusion between carefully sourced history and AI‑generated performance.​