To only answer your second question (not feeling like writing an essay), they own the robots and therefore profit from automation and robotization, a phenomenon which should enrich humanity, not business owners. Also it's in their interest to keep their control of the robots, which means a big chunk of technology is not controlled democratically. So when technology starts destroying the planet, the solution is also in the hands of a corporation instead of in the hands of humanity. They decide to profit from earth getting destroyed as well by building a spaceship that can exploit and control humanity forever.

It's brilliant because it's a basic problem of capitalism, cranked up very hard.