> We’d have to end pretty much all those programs to run a minuscule basic income

Isn't ending all those programs one of the core ideas of universal basic income? Instead of having a huge bureaucracy administering targeted social welfare you cut all the overhead and just pay everyone enough to exist, regardless of whether you actually need it. It'd still be more expensive, but giving people something dependable to fall back on would hopefully increase innovation and entrepreneurship, offsetting some of the costs

That’s a matter of where you get your taxes from. Plenty of corporations can afford to pay a more fair share. And studies on basic income have so far shown it to be effective.

Whats the alternative? Kill off all humans replaced by AI unable to do something else for a living? Its sad enough that there are food stamps given the amount of food that regularly ends up in a dumpster on a daily basis. Humans come first, not machinery.

The people who own the magical AIs won't decide that they want to keep us all as pets, we won't have leverage to demand that they keep us all as pets, and they will have the resources to make sure they no longer need to keep us as pets. Shouting "You should keep humans as pets" is unlikely to change this fundamental equation.

>The largest sector of US federal spending is health and social welfare.

On old people who can't or don't work.