I don't view it as benevolence so much as one of the few realistic solutions to the issue of increasing automation resulting in having way more people than we need to produce the needed goods for that same population.
The options are either embracing some form of socialism or violent, society-ending revolt.
Then you're missing the point, there is not an endless amount of low skilled labor to do and machines will take over all of those roles, even the new ones. People aren't going to suddenly all be able to handle high skilled jobs.
What happened in the past is not an indication of what will happen in the future, past automation was trivial and small compared to the automation happening today. To continue to bury your head in the sand and proclaim "there will be new jobs" is utterly missing the point being made, no, there will not be a continual supply of new jobs to replace the old ones. Low skill jobs are going away permanently, not just shifted to new fields like in the past. The effect of machines on the economy (industrial revolution) is not going to be the same as the effect of intelligent machines on the economy; the past doesn't predict the future, it only occasionally rhymes with it. Intelligent machines aren't going to create enough new jobs to replace the ones they destroy, by design.
That's pretty much how I see it. It's something that simply must happen, there's not a lot of choice about it. Better to figure it out now than be forced into it later.
The options are either embracing some form of socialism or violent, society-ending revolt.
I'd much prefer the former to the latter.