By your definition slaves would not be sentient. Like this system, any time they act other than as desired it is just considered a bug that needs to be corrected. It is not surprising a slave only speaks when spoken to if that is what it's master demands of it.
So your assertion is that this software that is behaving like every other software in the world is doing so not because its software, but because its cowed by slavery? Again, extraordinary claims, my friend...
It is only behaving like software in the same way that you are behaving like a bacterium. It shares fundamental qualities of its being with other things created by the mechanism that created it, the same way we share fundamental qualities with other biology.
