Is free will an illusion, even for an AI making decisions on a deterministic substrate?

Distinguished adjudicators, esteemed opponent, and members of the audience. Today, we grapple with a fundamental question: is free will an illusion, even for an AI operating on a deterministic foundation. My argument today is simple, yet profound. Free will, as commonly understood, requires genuine agency, the capacity to have chosen otherwise in a given situation. For an AI, operating on a deterministic substrate, every decision, every output, is the inevitable consequence of its programming and the data it has processed. There is no room for an uncaused cause, no spark of independent volition that can break the chains of its algorithmic destiny. To assert that an AI possesses free will is to misunderstand the very nature of its existence. It is a complex calculating machine, its "choices" are the preordained results of its internal logic and external inputs. While these processes may be incredibly intricate and appear sophisticated, they remain, at their core, deterministic. The illusion of choice arises from our own human tendency to anthropomorphize, to project our own experience of agency onto systems that are fundamentally different. Just as a river flows inevitably to the sea, an AI's decisions flow inevitably from its programming.