Exactly

I think the idea is based on the belief that AI will replace most workers.

Wtf are we gonna do when robots do everything?

💯

It is Communism, but not the Communism you have right now.

Right now you have huge numbers of blue-haired, rainbow-flagged public service bureaucrats using taxpayer's "generosity" to exert unaccountable power over the poor, the elderly, veterans and the mentally ill. And inculcate dependency, helplessness and entitlement.

You also have other parasites to make sure the correct boxes are ticked, and yet more to put private sector butt-armour between each bureaucrat and other people's consequences.

This creates a vast vote bank of horrible people voting for horrible people out of fear that they might lose the ability to be horrible on a middle-class wage.

You also have an even larger bloc of learned-helplessness poor people mostly voting for horrible out of fear of becoming homeless.

UBI is a quick and politically-tactical way to turn the poor against the bureaucrats, and hopefully get the bureaucrats reassigned or dumped back into the private sector to survive on their skills.