Technology

UBI is needed for power redistribution more than wealth redistribution. Sure, one good reason is the employment displacement from robotics/ai. But a robot tax is far inferior to general income taxes. Beyond your examples, pipes and wires into your home are automation. Machines with human operators are automation as well.

Even if you were to only tax the robot users, what about those who get rich from building yachts for the robot users?

China has a big lead in robotics because nearly all manufacturing is done there. That is there massive competitive advantage in EVs as an example. As a national competitiveness, and consumer prices, measure, incentivizing people to go collect their water from a nearby river, and heating wood from nearby trees, and otherwise committing to full employment through less automated processes, is a massive decline in standard of living.

UBI does let you create your own job. Sales and design will always be needed, even if design is inputs into an AI prompt. Without the disempowerment of warmongering rulership, AI will serve the disinformation and murder needs of that rulership. UBI/freedom dividends funded by taxes on extreme income is the path to make the winners pay for human sustainability instead of human extermination.