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ZENODO
Report . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Report . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Report . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Handling Non-Determinism in AI Systems: A Distributed Systems Perspective

Authors: Dhavale, Poonam;

Handling Non-Determinism in AI Systems: A Distributed Systems Perspective

Abstract

AI pipelines built around LLMs are often treated as deterministic systems, but in practice they behave as probabilistic distributed systems. This paper presents a distributed-systems-inspired framework for managing non-determinism in production AI inference pipelines. We introduce Probabilistic Compute Graphs (PCGs), identify key sources of variability, and propose five architectural principles—versioning, tracing, replay, quorum validation, and guardrails—instantiated in a two-plane architecture separating inference from reliability infrastructure. The framework provides a practical approach to improving reproducibility, observability, and consistency in systems such as RAG and multi-agent pipelines. This is a position and systems-design paper focused on runtime reliability of inference pipelines rather than training-time reproducibility. Version 2: Formatting improvements and layout refinements. No changes to technical content.

Keywords

distributed systems, AI Systems, Agent 2 Agent (A2A), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), Multi-agent AI systems, large language models, AI infrastructure, non-determinism, Model Context Protocol (MCP)

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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