You can do repetitive, meaningless work while on UBI as well. For example I plan to smoke weed and play video games.

The difference is you are doing what you want, rather than needing to do it to survive.

Yes, but then I do things that are not necessary for our society leading to its decay and eventual complete failure.

What you were doing before is still happening, if it was automated. Any small benefit you produce for society when you’re taking a break from smoking weed is a net positive for society compared to if you still had to spend all your time robotically doing your meaningless old job.

I do not think we’ll ever manage to automate everything. The more we automate, the more stuff to be done we’ll discover or invent. Not the old job, but many new ones.

This is true for tweaking and was certainly true for industrial automation.

However the danger is if you cut human input/involvement altogether. That is what AI will be if successful. Everyone except the business owner will be uninvolved (apart from futile protests).

Why not something more spiritually fulfilling?

Why DO?

Weed and games are fun. Spiritually fulfilling work is fun until about 10%, then you have to document the code, write tests, do marketing, answer support and so on…