> from a practical sense they are non-deterministic in that a human can't determine what it'll produce without running it
But this is also true for programs that are deliberately random. If you program a computer to output a list of random (not pseudo-random) numbers between 0 and 100, then you cannot determine ahead of time what the output will be.
The difference is, you at least know the range of values that it will give you and the distribution, and if programmed correctly, the random number generator will consistency give you numbers in that range with the expected probability distribution.
In contrast, an LLM's answer to "List random numbers between 0 and 100" usually will result in what you expect, or (with a nonzero probability) it might just up and decide to include numbers outside of that range, or (with a nonzero probability) it might decide to list animals instead of numbers. There's no way to know for sure, and you can't prove from the code that it won't happen.
> it might just up and decide to include numbers outside of that range, or (with a nonzero probability) it might decide to list animals instead of numbers
For example, all of the replies I've gotten that are formatted as "Here is the random number you asked for: forty-two."
Which is both absolutely technically correct and very completely missing the point, and it might decide to do that one time in a hundred and crash your whole stack.
There are ways around that, but it's a headache you don't get with rand() or the equivalent for whatever problem you're solving.
But this is also true for programs that are deliberately random. If you program a computer to output a list of random (not pseudo-random) numbers between 0 and 100, then you cannot determine ahead of time what the output will be.
The difference is, you at least know the range of values that it will give you and the distribution, and if programmed correctly, the random number generator will consistency give you numbers in that range with the expected probability distribution.
In contrast, an LLM's answer to "List random numbers between 0 and 100" usually will result in what you expect, or (with a nonzero probability) it might just up and decide to include numbers outside of that range, or (with a nonzero probability) it might decide to list animals instead of numbers. There's no way to know for sure, and you can't prove from the code that it won't happen.