The question
Write about the following topic:
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to make decisions that were once made by people, such as approving bank loans or selecting job applicants for interview.
Why is this happening? Is this a positive or negative development?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
Key ideas for a high-band answer
- Why: efficiency, since AI can process thousands of applications or millions of loan requests quickly and cheaply.
- Claimed advantage: algorithms are more consistent than humans affected by tiredness, mood or prejudice.
- Negative: systems learn bias from past data and can discriminate at scale (e.g. Amazon's abandoned recruitment tool).
- Negative: lack of transparency and unclear accountability when decisions cannot be explained or challenged.
- A clear judgement, e.g. negative unless there is human oversight, bias testing and a right to an explanation.
Band 9 model answer
317 words · written by Abroadway to show band 9 features (not an official IELTS sample)
Organisations are handing more and more decisions to computer systems, from deciding who receives a loan to choosing which job applicants are invited for interview. This trend has clear causes, and while it offers real benefits, I believe it is a negative development unless it is carefully controlled.
The main reason for this shift is efficiency. A large company may receive thousands of applications for a single position, and a bank may process millions of loan requests each year. Artificial intelligence can analyse this data in seconds, at a fraction of the cost of employing human staff. Supporters also argue that algorithms are more consistent than people, who can be influenced by tiredness, mood or personal prejudice.
However, the problems are serious. AI systems learn from past decisions, so if those decisions were unfair, the system will repeat them on a much larger scale. A well-known example is an experimental recruitment tool developed by Amazon, which was abandoned after it was found to give lower scores to CVs containing the word 'women's', because it had been trained mostly on applications from men. Such bias can lead to discrimination that is hard to detect. Another difficulty is transparency: many AI systems cannot explain why they reached a particular decision, so a person who is refused a loan may have no way of challenging the result. This also raises questions of accountability, since it is unclear who is responsible when an algorithm makes a mistake.
For these reasons, AI should support rather than replace human judgement in decisions that seriously affect people's lives. Laws should require human oversight, regular checks for bias and a right for individuals to receive an explanation.
In conclusion, AI is being used for important decisions mainly because it is fast and cheap. Although it can reduce some forms of human error, I believe its risks currently outweigh its benefits unless strict safeguards are introduced.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- artificial intelligence
- algorithms
- efficiency
- data
- bias
- transparency
- accountability
- human oversight
- discrimination
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