It's not ideal, but it affords a higher level of dignity. People have something (work) to trade for money. After automation, the majority of people will have nothing of value to offer. That would affect their independence and dignity.

I believe a better solution would be to put automation in the service of people directly, as property of the people. Maybe small communities would be able to combine work with automation to provide for all their necessities. In the future, a few solar panels, 3D-printers and robots could possibly bootstrap a whole community.

Then the role of the government would be to provide the initial technology and to make sure each community has its own bootstrap working in order, not to distribute UBI. People would still have work to do - to supervise automation and work alongside with it, where necessary.

Somehow, control and ownership of the means of production (automation) would need to be divided and spread equally in the population, otherwise, it will just detract from the value of people.

But if we spread automation ownership, then there could be a new level of independence where a community could provide for all its needs internally and perhaps, even desire more autonomy from the state.