We’re crossing the uncanny valley and soon enough you won’t know if an image is real or AI. The tell-tale signs will fade (already are) and the “authenticity” you speak of will actually be there. So to speak.
I can already take a photorealistic photo with my camera, no AI needed. We don't hire photographers just because they can create photorealistic images, we hire them because they can take the right photorealistic images.
It's similar to how people are worried about AI killing all programming jobs. Yes, I've also been blown away by the ability of LLMs to write some code, but my value as a developer comes more from being detail oriented, understanding when requirements are underspecified, thinking through edge-cases, and then finally being able to turn this into something a machine can execute. Compilers didn't put earlier assembly language programmers out of business, it just required most programmers to program differently.
While I do worry about the sheer number of jobs (because I think more junior, entry-level jobs will get supplanted, which makes it harder to move up the career ladder in the first place), I think people will still want the expertise of good photographers.