[pipo234]

Would like to point out that professional translation has been under pressure for much longer than AI.

I have friends that made a descent buck 20-30 years ago translating technical documents like car manuals. Over the years, prices fell from quarters per words to fractions of a cent.

And even though machine translation was barely existent, tools were used to argue higher productivity and therefore lower prices.

[vunderba]

This. Google, when it went to a more neural-based translation system about a decade ago, along with DeepL put a serious dent in translation work - particularly around gigs that don't require extremely rigorous accuracy like legal or medical.

Several of my friends who used to work full-time as translators are now supplementing their income with side jobs like foreign language teaching, proofreading, and similar work.