At a macro level, people from the former group might be doing better than you think.

I have gone from Senior II, to Lead Architect, to Principal Engineer in the years LLMs have been available.

It's not literally a 100x multiplier, but I have leveraged their ability to both fill in details where I lack specific knowledge, and as a first point of contact when researching a new space.

LLMs have enabled me to widen my sphere of influence by deepening my abilities at every point of my T-shaped knowledge curve.