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This is definitely a valid point. Full disclosure, I work at a publishers and am involved in these conversations on a daily basis. The inverse to your point about translators losing income (we're currently quite a way from the situation you describe, most of the industry does still use human translators - my company has never used an AI translator -, but that is def the direction of travel) - is the possibility for all/more books to be translated. Currently, the cost of hiring a translator (and the lack of immediate demand) means 98% of books will never get translated. If we reach a point whereby this can genuinely be automated and the output be of acceptable standard, then many more authors will have the opportunity of far greater international discovery and potential income streams.
But yes, translators, copywriters, copy editors, authors and illustrators (of 'generic' works) are absolutely on the frontline of the AI-stole-my-job battle.
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owl
Mr_Smyth
A canary example that has stuck in my head is translations. Which is a classic example of something that is easy on paper, and a perfect fit for Machine learning, but anyone with even a passing interest in translation knows that a good translator does a lot more than just a literal job of A-B.
Previously it was a skilled job, that some people could make a comfortable living from, but once ML became good enough on the surface level, the people making decisions stopped paying for the skilled translators, and now for the most part you can't even find someone to do that work even if you wanted to pay for the skills because people can't make a living from it any more, and everyone is stuck with good-enough literal translations with none of the nuances enabled by a skilled practitioner