To be fair, the urgency of figuring out whether basic income will work is largely driven by the concern that the number of available jobs will be reduced due to AI (or automation in general). Reduced job availability is about the only legitimate current concern (sub 30 years) of present day AI advances.

It makes sense they are discussed in the same comment to an article about whether we have dealt with the influence of the equivalent of AI for thousands of years through efficiency and specialization.