how similar is free will to an LLM’s temperature causing the LLM to output slightly different token sequences which, however, convey a similar meaning
If I’m understanding you right, this is sort of similar to the analogous question for humans—how similar is my free will to the fact that my neurons have a temperature, so for every action I take I have some large probability of doing something slightly different, and a small probability of doing something very different.
Personally, I don’t associate that fact much with “free will”—it has the freedom, but not the will! Free will, to me, is about doing things because I want. That is, when the most important explanatory story for why I take an action ends in my own psychological state (rather than in my environment or in someone else’s machinations), that’s when I’m being most free-willed. An explanation based on the temperature of my neurons is in the right physical location but lacks relevance to my psychology.
If I’m understanding you right, this is sort of similar to the analogous question for humans—how similar is my free will to the fact that my neurons have a temperature, so for every action I take I have some large probability of doing something slightly different, and a small probability of doing something very different.
Personally, I don’t associate that fact much with “free will”—it has the freedom, but not the will! Free will, to me, is about doing things because I want. That is, when the most important explanatory story for why I take an action ends in my own psychological state (rather than in my environment or in someone else’s machinations), that’s when I’m being most free-willed. An explanation based on the temperature of my neurons is in the right physical location but lacks relevance to my psychology.