Maybe it can, maybe it cannot - who knows?

I guess we'll soon find out.

The minute a human flicks the power switch on a self replicating machine that an AI convinced it to build will be the start of a totally different world.

The world is full of self-replicating things - it would need special attributes such as an ability to consume everything or being impossible to shut down/destroy to be of novel quality. A clunky, self-replicating thing would certainly be an interesting trinket but maybe not much more.

A clunky self-replicating thing running a corporation on predatory capitalist principles would not be "an interesting trinket."

We're talking about automating dictatorship, with humans living inside an AI panopticon which is far more intelligent than we are. And far better at manipulating our intellectual and emotional responses than any human dictator to date.

And that's one of the better outcomes. The worst outcome is an AI that decides we're disposable because we're in its way.

Note that all of these are possible even if the AI is not sentient or self-aware. A machine intelligence can be an effective goal seeker, even if it's morally as sophisticated as a room thermostat - which has goals but no concept of what temperature feels like, or why humans can only survive in a certain range.

For an AI to run a corporation, people need to let it. Btw. none of this needs AI, really, people can do this to other people.