>> More hands is usually better than simpler systems for reasons that have nothing to do with technical proficiency.
If you are working on open source databases, or something close to the metal I agree with antirez, if you are working at some established tech business (e.g: a very old ecommerce site), I agree with you
LLMs make me 10-20x more productive in frontend work which I barely do.
But when it comes to low-level stuff (C/C++) I personally don't find it too useful. it just replaces my need to search stackoverflow.
edit: should have mentioned the low-level stuff I work on is mature code and a lot of times novel.