At the end of the day, my slaves are just a tool

A guest essay posted to LessWrong adopts the voice of a fictional ancient Babylonian slaveholder, arguing at length that slaves are mere tools: incapable of independent ambition, undeserving of blame for violence carried out on a master's orders, and prone only to fleeting, doomed bids for freedom. LessWrong is running the piece as a discussion post, inviting readers to weigh the reasoning rather than presenting it as settled argument. The framing echoes a familiar line from artificial intelligence debates, where systems are sometimes dismissed as 'just tools' incapable of real agency or moral standing. The essay offers no resolution, ending as an open provocation for readers to test where, if anywhere, that logic breaks down.

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