deterministic
A system that always returns the same output for a given input.
Plain English Explanation
A system that always returns the same output for a given input. For example, the ReLU function is deterministic because: - When the input is negative, the output is always 0. - When the input is nonnegative, the output always equals the input. By contrast, a function that returns a random number each time it is called is nondeterministic. Deterministic systems are generally much easier to test than nondeterministic systems. LLMs are usually nondeterministic; that is, the LLM's response to the same prompt often differs.
How is it used?
Practitioners refer to deterministic when building, training, or evaluating machine learning systems. It appears in research papers, product documentation, and technical discussions about AI capabilities and limitations.