If an actual system were ever put in place over me, I would do my utmost to be rid of it. To me, the implications of having a system equate to a sort of forced limitation, and a sort of Tyrannical imprisonment, rather than freedom or power. If you are under such a system, you are subject to it's whims, it's limitations, and it's manipulations in how you choose to live your life.
For the promise of the 'gift' of easy power, it may control your actions through reward and or possibly punishment. Whose to say where the growth limit of the system is, and whether or not you could achieve greater things through your own hard work and a little more patience? You have no idea of the motivations of such a system, or whether it will lead to your ultimate good. The idea of a system seems to me a golden leash that engages in behavioral psychology to turn you on compliance with IT'S will and not your own.
Fundamentally, a system is antithetical to my idea of a free existence. Whomever put that system in place is controller of your destiny, for good or ill. I would not ever trust such 'benevolence' out of a system placed over myself.
Depending on the system you could be entirely right, if it is one with very strict penalties. But I think you're entirely wrong for the largest part. Our world is very limiting. Systems are ways to break free from common settings. There is slavery, and modern day slavery (black companies), debts, unfair leaders and an uncountable number of modern and fantasy injustices.
Systems provide power to break free from those. If you have a system which doesn't have penalties it wouldn't matter what tasks it gives as long as you would hold onto your principles. People with even a little bit of power (those who can get their hands on guns for example) often don't use it. While others will exercise it as soon as they get it.
I think you don't look at how caged our current existence is, primarily limited by the common form of power, money, a system which would provide money would give you more power, something every system does, it
would give you more freedom. If there are tasks which would go against your principles, things like killing, or killing children,
without a penalty, the problem wouldn't lie with the system (doesn't matter whether it is sentient or not), it would lie with you.
In the end it wholely depends of what kind of systems were speaking. There are the normal ones, with only a task and rewards, then there are the ones with penalties, some minor, others possibly killing you. But even if it is one with penalties you would have some amount of freedom. Would you rather be a slave to a poor man with minimal food or slave to a rich man, where you still have to listen, but you get better food in return and other benefits, that is pretty much what it boils down to.
