Robert used empirical data a bunch to solve the problem. Getting empirical data for nano-tech seems to involve a bunch of difficult experiments that take lots of time and resources to run.
You could argue that the AI could use data from previous experiments to figure this out, but I expect that very specific experiments would need to be run. (Also, you might need to create new tech to even run these experiments, which in itself requires empirical data.)
Robert used empirical data a bunch to solve the problem. Getting empirical data for nano-tech seems to involve a bunch of difficult experiments that take lots of time and resources to run.
You could argue that the AI could use data from previous experiments to figure this out, but I expect that very specific experiments would need to be run. (Also, you might need to create new tech to even run these experiments, which in itself requires empirical data.)