alt Hacker News> The reason reproducible builds are tricky is not because compilers are inherently prone to randomness
And neither are LLMs. Having their output employ randomness by default is a choice, not a requirement, just like things like embedding timestamps into builds is a choice that can be unwound if you want the build to be reproducible.
> People need to stop comparing LLMs to compilers, it's an embarrassingly poor analogy.
They are certainly different things, but if you are going to criticize LLMs it would be better if you understood them.
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> Having their output employ randomness by default is a choice, not a requirement
This is not really meaningfully true. E.g. batching, heterogeneous inference HW, and even differences in model versions can make a difference in what result you get, and these are hard to solve.
> And neither are LLMs.
This is not my claim, you're veering wildly off course here. I'm merely responding to the common, tiresome and, to be frank, stupid analogy of LLMs to compilers.
Are you arguing that the output of an LLM isn’t random?