Why do you need a body when you can wire funds to contractors? If I were a genius entrepreneur who wanted to build some sort of big chemical plant, it wouldn't matter whether I'm fit or in a wheelchair. I'm not going to be building it with my own hands anyway. If it were commissioned by a reclusive billionaire who nobody has seen except via zoom call, and signed off on by an engineering firm whose chief engineer also is similarly reclusive, I think nobody would particularly mind.

Humans have bootstrapped the tools we needed to build nuclear weapons, iphones and skyscrapers from human hands, trees and rocks. Its an interesting problem to imagine fast you could do the same thing - starting from rocks and building a city.

If humans have managed it, I think its reasonable to assume a human level (or smarter) AI could accomplish the same bootstrapping process if you gave it access to an actuator (robot arm or human assistant), enough sensors to see whats going on, and some "starter" tools and materials.

What would be the minimum starter set of stuff it would need to get going? Way less stuff than what you'd find in a modern shop, or what anyone can order online with a few hundred dollars to spend.

If AIs learn to code, seems like they should be able to learn mechanical engineering too.

If I were an evil take over the world AI the last thing I'd have is a body. Maybe I'd have a few million or billion of them since swarms are much harder to kill and have more time to adapt.

Also...

https://youtu.be/XPVC4IyRTG8?si=-RvP13kpjG92iv3e