At the root of this question is whether life is entirely deterministic. Either position - yes it is, or no it isn't - is unfalsifiable.
And in either case, one must live as if life is not deterministic, or else one's sense of agency and meaning dissolve.
Also, maybe the goal of the computation isn't to generate a deterministic output. Maybe it's just to compress a lot of very random input, in a way that smooths out the noise. In this way life could be essentially random on purpose, because all the varieties of randomness are better at modeling the data (the observable universe) than a classical deterministic function would be.
Maybe? It is correct according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, but there are other interpretations that are deterministic.
I happen not to believe in this, personally. It seems to me that the non-dual metaphysical teachings of the East show us that determinism happens within a sphere that is subject to free-will. The realm of phenomenology is a subset of something greater, where nothing is bound by conditions. This is the way things necessarily must be for free will to exist, by the way.
Ironically, the Copehhagen interpretation is the relatively easier one to grasp. Other interpretations, such as Many Worlds, make it much more complicated. Can we really speak of free will if we actually make every decision that we possibly could?
Unfortunately, we won't get any real answers related to consciousness, or specifically the "hard question" and the "even harder question" in our lifetimes, if humanity can ever crack those.
And 10 seconds later, we're still alive.
An astronomically tiny fraction of possible worlds would result in us being alive at all.
IMHO, we have total free will, but we can only be conscious of a world where we're not dead. That eliminates most of them. I don't know what further proof we actually need. If it's true, it will become more and more obvious over time as you outlive your peers, then outlive every other living thing on the planet. If not... well, I would have no way to prove that you didn't live forever (in your timeline). Best of luck to us, lol.
[edit] also, just back to the original topic... if the point of this universe algorithm is to monte carlo stuff, like compare a billion versions of the stock market on each of a billion planets, then each run is randomized and free will is a requirement. No individual timeline is pre-baked because the randomness has to go down to the quantum level to make it not be deterministic. If our universe were deterministic, there would be no reason to run the sim.
[edit 2] this is what I've thought for about 15 years, but I just pulled the above summary completely out of my ass. So you won't know until your brain is conscious in a tank orbiting Saturn 200 years from now, and Farrah Fawcett wakes you up and you go... "That guy from HN was right!"