[coldtea]

A computer doesn't take any "free will" decision of its own -- everything is determined at the time the program is written/loaded.

"Doing X if Y" is not a free will decision if it's already encoded. In a sense it's not a decision at all. When X, the computer will do Y, period.

(And this also applies if we add some stohastic elements in the mix).

[ajuc]

> everything is determined at the time the program is written/loaded

Computer can measure random event and do something basing on that.

> is not a free will decision if it's already encoded

Most probably so is our "free will".

[tjoff]

A computer doesn't take any "free will" decisions. But it does make decisions, based on rules that the programmer gave it. Everything about the program is determined, but the inputs to the program is not necessarily deterministic and is also completely orthogonal to free will. We can still have true random events, that doesn't imply that free will exist.

The actions of a computer making decisions based on a noisy, nondeterministic source, can not be predicted.

From your previous post: It doesn't even matter if one is guilty or not -- the decision to jail them or not is already made before they committed anything and is independent of their actions.

The decision to jail them depends on whether they are found guilty. Whether they are found guilty depends on the information available at that time. What information is available is not deterministic even in a world lacking free will.