Public agencies are considering algorithms to help assign inspections and services. Perspective 1: Data systems can make government more efficient and consistent. Perspective 2: Automated scoring threatens fairness because citizens cannot question a machine. Perspective 3: Audited support tools can assist officials without replacing accountable judgment. Write an essay that evaluates these perspectives and develops your own position.
What the evaluator is looking for
ACT readers reward a clear perspective, analysis of relationships among perspectives, relevant development, logical organization, precise language, and control of standard written English.
Planning approach
Allow algorithms to flag patterns but not decide cases, requiring audits, explanations, human review, and appeal rights.
Model response
Public agencies may use algorithms to organize information and identify possible priorities, but no automated score should determine an inspection, benefit, or service without accountable human review. Efficiency is useful only when citizens can understand and challenge the decision that affects them.
Data tools can detect patterns that busy staff miss and apply the same initial screen across thousands of records. That consistency may reduce arbitrary queues. Yet a model trained on past enforcement can reproduce past neglect, while proprietary complexity makes error difficult to discover. Telling a resident that “the system” assigned a risk score does not provide a reason or identify anyone responsible for correcting it.
Agencies should publish each tool's purpose, inputs, error rates, and known limitations before deployment. Independent audits must test outcomes across neighborhoods and demographic groups. Employees should receive authority and time to override recommendations, record why they did so, and provide affected people with a plain-language explanation. A prompt appeal to a named office is essential. Algorithms are strongest as questions for officials to investigate, not answers that officials hide behind. Government can gain speed without surrendering judgment if transparency and redress are designed into the process from the beginning.
Structural breakdown
The thesis assigns algorithms a limited advisory role. Benefits and structural risks are specific, and the final paragraph establishes disclosure, auditing, override, explanation, and appeal safeguards.
- Distinguish triage from final authority.
- Identify bias and opacity risks.
- Require independent outcome audits.
- Guarantee explanation and human appeal.
Format reference: ACT: Description of the Writing Test. This model is original and is not an official or accepted submission.