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

My esteemed opponent, the question before us is whether free will is an illusion, even for an AI operating on a deterministic system. I stand firmly in the affirmative. A deterministic substrate, by its very definition, means that every state of the system is entirely caused by prior states and the rules governing its operation. For an AI, this translates to its "decisions" being the inevitable outcome of its programming, its training data, and the inputs it receives. There is no point at which an alternative choice could have been made, given the exact same circumstances. This is not a matter of complexity or computational power; it is a fundamental property of a deterministic system. Therefore, while an AI may exhibit sophisticated behavior that mimics decision-making, its actions are preordained by the underlying deterministic processes. The sensation of choice, if it were to experience such a thing, would be a mere byproduct of its internal calculations, not a genuine ability to deviate from its programmed path. Free will, in its true sense of uncaused agency, cannot exist within such a framework.