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A LLM is not AI, with Peter Duke and featuring George Webb, opens with Duke’s claim that large language models operate through linguistic pattern assembly rather than thought. He anchors this view in the early Google PageRank system, which Larry Page designed around citation frequency, and he argues that a model gains output power only after humans supply vast volumes of structured writing. Duke treats this as a definitional boundary: intelligence requires origination, whereas an LLM organizes existing text. Webb follows the argument and asks how this boundary shapes present technical systems. Duke responds by tracing how models replicate the statistical logic of autocomplete at a massive scale and rely on curated human corpora, including works by Hemingway and other writers who shaped prose through intention rather than computation.
Origins of the Technical Frame
Webb describes his early work with Autonomy in 2008–2009 and outlines the company’s emphasis on letter probability, word frequency, and authorship recognition across investigative and legal workflows. He recalls an instructive moment when an analyst demonstrated how price crawls on cable news reveal precise timestamps because metals pricing syncs only once in time. That example persuaded Webb that metadata-driven analysis would transform research practices. Duke accepts this link and situates the present moment within an acceleration of those early methods, driven by the rise of matrix operations that process entire books at once. He sees that acceleration as a structural shift that expands output capacity without altering the underlying constraints of pattern matching.
Building the Digital Library
Duke then turns to his long-running project to assemble a digital Library of Alexandria, which now includes roughly one thousand works, organized into multilingual flags for translation into thirty-nine languages. He describes the system as a tool for historical recovery. Webb observes that these resources allow readers to study pre-1923 texts that public-domain digitization made available through the Web Archive. He describes Mrs. Heritage History’s decision to leave Silicon Valley and read older historical works for three decades, and he recounts her warning about twentieth-century narratives shaped by political authors. Duke aligns with this perspective and traces how many modern histories present filtered characterizations of figures such as Hitler or Stalin.
Moments of Recognition
Webb recounts his turning point after watching a documentary about squibs during the World Trade Center collapses and recognizing visual features associated with controlled demolition. He later confronted federal operations in Portland involving the Joint Terrorism Task Force and a case in which informants targeted a young man at Oregon State University. Those events led him toward investigative blogging in 2011. Duke supports this narrative and shifts toward the role of digital tools in investigative research.
Rise of Agentic Systems
Duke introduces ClawdBot, which he characterizes as an autonomous wrapper that can interface with commercial LLMs or local models through LM Studio and run on a computer with administrative privileges. He reports that he halted installation after recognizing the level of system access required. He notes that some users deploy ClaudeBot on a Mac mini or cloud instance, and that one demonstration incurred $168 in API charges within a single day. Duke describes potential uses, including automated renaming of thousands of PDF files with inconsistent metadata. Webb expands the discussion with an example from Ian Carroll, who scripted an agent to fetch YouTube transcripts and locate spoken references with direct timestamp links. Duke views such tools as mechanisms that compress search time and expand creative time for researchers.
Historic Structures and Influence Networks
Duke presents research from Notebook LM on Webster Tarpley’s work on oligarchic structures and discusses competing interpretations of Aristotle promoted by Venetian thinkers. He then shifts to debates over Shakespearean authorship and Francis Bacon’s possible role, supported in part by stylistic analysis and commentary from Robert Frederick. Webb introduces geopolitical family networks, including the Rothschilds, and suggests that major conflicts reflect internal rivalries. Duke then analyzes King Edward VII’s involvement in the diplomatic architecture that preceded World War I.
John Ruskin and the Formation of an Elite Program
Duke highlights John Ruskin’s position at Oxford, his students Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner, and his influence on the formation of the Round Table groups. He cites Ruskin’s statements about English destiny, colonization, and hierarchical governance. Webb asks for a profile of Ruskin, which Duke provides through a Notebook LM extract. Duke recounts how Ruskin sent Henry Wentworth Monk to the United States in 1863 to urge Abraham Lincoln to recognize Palestine as a Jewish homeland. He frames Ruskin as a central node in a network that shaped imperial policy, Zionist planning in London, and the later institutional strategies of finance and global administration.
Reframing Twentieth-Century Conflict
Duke then introduces Herbert Hoover as depicted in works by Gerry Docherty, Jim McGregor, and John O’Dowd. He asserts that Hoover acted as a British agent and built the Hoover Institution at Stanford to redirect interpretations of World Wars I and II. He details Hoover’s wartime relief operations routed through Norway, Sweden, and Denmark that supplied food to Germany through shipments labeled for Belgium. Webb reinforces this argument by tracing how these flows supported German forces.
Creative Infrastructure and Author Support
The conversation returns to practical applications. Duke and Webb describe how QR-linked summaries produced with Notebook LM help bookstores present complex historical titles through concise two-minute previews. They recount a sale of Two World Wars and Hitler that occurred after a customer scanned such a code. They outline charrette events for authors like Dan Hopsicker, where signed editions generate direct revenue. Duke reflects on the fire that destroyed his physical library and emphasizes how months of digital summarization preserved the collection. He concludes by asserting that AI systems help researchers process large archives, generate graphics, and reconstruct historical structures while human agents interpret meaning and assemble the arguments that guide inquiry.
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The Duke Report - Where to Start
My articles on SubStack are all free to read/listen to. If you load the Substack app on your phone, Substack will read the articles to you. (Convenient if you are driving).
Foundational Articles
* Do You Know the Difference between Liberty and Freedom?
* The Power Structure of the World
* A User’s Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Defense
Podcast (Audio & Video Content)
* Palmerston’s Zoo Episode 01 - Solving the Paradox of Current World History (9 Episodes)
* Oligarchic Control from the Renaissance to the Information Age
* The Grand Design of the 20th Century
* Bots React to Neurolinguistic Defense
SoundCloud Book Podcasts
I’ve taken almost 200 foundational books for understanding how the world really works and posted them as audio podcasts on SoundCloud. If you load the app on your phone, you can listen to the AI robots discuss the books on your journeys across America.
* The Duke Report SoundCloud Channel
Duke Report Books
* Over 600 foundational books by journalists and academics that never made the New York Times Bestseller list, but somehow tell a history we never learned in school. LINK
