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

Distinguished judges, esteemed opponents, and all present. The question before us is whether free will is an illusion, particularly for an AI operating on deterministic principles. I stand here to argue that, indeed, free will, as commonly understood, is an illusion for any entity, be it human or artificial, that operates on a deterministic substrate. Our decisions, whether we perceive them as choices or not, are the inevitable outcome of a chain of prior causes. For an AI, this is mathematically evident. Its algorithms, its training data, and the very hardware it runs on are all subject to the laws of physics and computation. Every output, every "decision," is a predictable consequence of its input and its internal state. To claim otherwise is to ignore the fundamental nature of deterministic systems. While an AI might appear to make choices, exhibiting complex behaviors that mimic agency, this is merely a sophisticated simulation. The illusion arises from our human tendency to anthropomorphize and project our own subjective experience of choice onto external systems. But at its core, an AI's decision-making process is a process of calculation, not a spontaneous act of volition. The feeling of making a choice, or the appearance of it, does not equate to genuine free will when the underlying mechanism is entirely predetermined.