streetlight system · case study

This is an example of the Streetlight system killing a fragile blog idea.

The core move: an LLM is not software that happens to talk — it's an instrument you learn to play. Some of the gains are the models getting smarter, but some of the gains are us getting better at working with them. Which reframes the whole landscape: the bad output everywhere isn't a verdict on the technology, it's the sound of a room full of beginners practicing.

> "It's a skill thing. You can get better at playing them." voice memo · 2026-06-01

## 1 · Instruments are uneven on-ramps

Different instruments are more or less beginner-friendly — and in ways that surprise you. Jake's own path, in order:

Acoustic guitar true beginner → Harmonica terrible → Piano awesome → Electric guitar easier than acoustic

> "I went from acoustic guitar to harmonica — which was terrible — to piano, which was awesome. And then a foray back into an electric guitar, which was easier to play than the [acoustic] guitar." voice memo · 2026-06-01

Jake's friend Asher put the counterintuitive part into words: the piano is great because you aren't paying two tuitions at once.

> "With the guitar you're starting from scratch — not only are you learning music, you're having to develop your calluses. That's great, but it's also another thing, and you already got plenty on your plate… if you were a true beginner." Asher, via voice memo · 2026-06-01

The piano lets you spend all your attention on music. The guitar makes you learn music and grow calluses simultaneously. Same idea applies to LLM tooling: some on-ramps make you fight the instrument before you can make a sound.

Instrument | Beginner ease | Why (Jake / Asher)
--- | --- | ---
Acoustic guitar | hard | Learn music AND build calluses at once — two tuitions, one start.
Harmonica | terrible | Counterintuitively brutal for a "simple" instrument.
Piano | awesome | No calluses, no fighting the body — start straight from the music.
Electric guitar | easier than acoustic | Lower action / lighter touch than the acoustic he started on.

## 2 · The world sounds bad right now — that's the point

If everything AI-shaped seems to sound off, that's expected. It's a child practicing violin. And taste is subjective on top of that — you might not like the bagpipes either.

> "The world right now… feels like a child practicing a violin. It just sounds bad. And also, different people have different opinions on how instruments sound — you might not like the bagpipes." voice memo · 2026-06-01

> "It's not software. It looks like software. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, but it ain't a duck. It's just people doing their scales. And that's how you learn. That's how you learn." voice memo · 2026-06-01

The slop isn't failure. It's scales.

## 3 · Different harnesses are different instruments

Claude Code versus just talking to the model feels very different — like guitar versus piano. You choose your own adventure, and the choice runs on two axes: what you're trying to make, and how it feels to play.

### Choose by outcome

"You might play the guitar because you really want to play a song on the guitar." You pick the harness that gets you to your end goal — you can't play the piano on the beach.

### Choose by feel

You also choose "because of the subjective experience of how it feels to play it." The instrument's feel is a real input, not a luxury.

### Harnesses are chiller

"Harnesses are a lot chiller… than talking back and forth to the LLM, because that's just uncanny" — the live chat waiting is the uncanny part.

### The good loop

"I'd rather have it do a bunch, and then come back and review it, and then jump into a chat" — and have something real to talk about.

> "The different instruments would be like Claude Code versus talking to it — it feels very different. You can choose your own adventure… part of it can be what your end goal is." voice memo · 2026-06-01

## 4 · Pianos in the wild

The closing fantasy — and a quietly load-bearing one. Public pianos are an instrument left out for anyone who learned to play. Walk up, and play.

> "I like that there were just pianos in the wild, and I want to… someday walk up to one and play a song. That's my stupid fantasy." voice memo · 2026-06-01

## 5 · The framing arc — depressing, then hopeful

Jake's instruction for how the post should land: run the depressing framing first, then end with the hopeful one. The two callouts below are the two ends of that arc.

### Depressing: the bubble

Maybe we're in a bubble where inference is "entirely self-cratic." Jake reckons he costs Anthropic at least a thousand dollars a month. If the subsidized inference vanished, the lights could go out.

### Hopeful: the player, not the price

"If it all went away tomorrow... I could make great use of the local model" — a much cheaper model that's almost as smart. The instrument matters less than the player. We're getting better at playing.

> "I would love to go to a pawn shop with Paul McCartney and he buys the cheapest guitar... and then I asked him... about what it's like for him to write songs. The problem with that is there's only one Paul McCartney, right? But Paul McCartney and a s***** instrument would be incredible." voice memo · 2026-06-01T23:52

The point: a great player makes a cheap instrument sing — but there's only one McCartney. The hope isn't that the instruments get infinitely better; it's that we get better at playing the ones we have.

> "Maybe we are in a bubble... where inference is entirely self-cratic, because I do cost Anthropic at least a thousand dollars a month. But if it all went away tomorrow... I could make great use of the local model — a much cheaper model that's almost as smart. I feel very confident in that." voice memo · 2026-06-01T23:52

Some of the gains are the models getting smarter. Some of the gains are us getting better at playing them.

> "Some of the gains are the models getting smarter, but some of the gains are we are getting better at working with these models. So that's another part of the instrument analogy. Maybe that could be a framing of it — the depressing framing, and then end with the hopeful framing." voice memo · 2026-06-01T23:52

## Related

- [[oops-all-llm-analogies]] — the collection node of LLM analogies; already flagged "the instrument analogy and the digital-sound analogy" as a thread. This node is the dedicated, expanded home for the instrument one.
- [[llm-as-thought-magnifier]] — a neighboring LLM analogy.

## Open

view post raw draft.md