alt Hacker NewsPeople use the word "determinism" when they really mean something akin to "linearity", i.e. the predictability of a change in input on a change in output. Compilers for example are both deterministic and "more linear" in the sense that I can tell what the output will look like given a change in input (yes yes optimizations violate this to a small degree). LLMs can be made totally deterministic, but a seemingly insignificant change in input can create a drastic change in output, which is the characterstic we don't want.
The generally used term that I'm familiar with for this is "referential transparency", that given the same inputs you'll get the same outputs every time. LLMs can be deterministic (referentially transparent) but almost none are, i.e. when they are given the exact same input they do not return the exact same output.