City welfare officials themselves recognize the flaws of the system, which “is held together by rubber bands and staples,” as Harry Bodaar, a senior policy advisor to the city who focuses on welfare fraud enforcement, told us. It’s a classic example of a “wicked problem,” a social or cultural issue with no one clear answer and many potential consequences. And if you want more detail on how we ran our own bias tests after the city gave us unprecedented access to the Smart Check algorithm, check out the methodology over at Lighthouse. This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.