[Philpax]

I don't think weatherproofing them is as much as a lift as making them work autonomously: once you have a proof of concept, it's much easier to evolve it to whatever spec you need.

For replication, probably not by themselves, but as part of an industrial system run by elites? Sure, why not? You progressively automate all the prerequisites to the manufacturing of your robots until the entire supply chain is automated. If they're unlucky, The Machine Stops [0]. If they're not... well, they won't need us.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops