Notably, in programming this is actually a desirable feature for most problems. Even human programmers are taught to produce predictable and obvious code whenever possible. I wonder is ultimately this is an artifact of optimizing the models for code, that they become less creative.

Determinism is a desirable property for software, yes, and its lack thereof from LLM’s is a common complaint, but often a feature depending on who you ask. There is an element of randomness, “hotness” that is central to who LLM work but the pattern we see here manifesting reveals the deterministic processes below, but I don’t think you could rely on this technology to be deterministic, if that’s what you wanted.

I’ve rarely experienced this. Typically what is requested is code that has unpredictable pauses, takes unbounded time, has two kinds of null, etc.