I've read and watched enough sci-fi to know that that's how you create evil AGI clones (probably wearing virtual mustaches) when a burst of alpha particles flips the wrong weights during the copy.
Sure, but you still have to make the first one.
But the first one won't have a "parent(al figure)s" to be used to raise it and "socialized among peers" won't really change anything if they're all the same peer, will it?
Why would the parental figures and peers need to be artificial?