Phase 3: Explainability & Transparency · 45 min · Python · Jinja2

Model Cards & Datasheets — Documenting for Transparency

A model without a model card is a model without accountability.

Hiring signal: Model card generation is a concrete deliverable in RAI engineering roles. Being able to produce a model card programmatically from audit results — not just write one by hand — demonstrates engineering maturity that hiring managers value.

What you will learn

Describe Google's model card template sections
Describe Gebru et al.'s datasheet for datasets framework
Map model card sections to EU AI Act Annex IV requirements
Build a model card generator that produces documentation from audit results

The Problem

When a model is deployed in production, the people who use it, audit it, and are affected by it need to understand what it does, how well it works, and where it fails. Google researchers Margaret Mitchell et al. proposed model cards in 2019 as a structured documentation format — inspired by the nutrition labels on food packaging. Timnit Gebru et al. proposed datasheets for datasets in the same spirit.

The EU AI Act makes this not just good practice but law: Annex IV requires technical documentation covering the system's intended purpose, training data, design choices, performance metrics, and risk management measures. A model card satisfies most of these requirements in a single document.

Google's Model Card Template

Section	Content	EU AI Act Annex IV Mapping
Model Details	Name, version, owner, date, license	Item 1: System description
Intended Use	Primary use cases, out-of-scope uses	Item 2: Intended purpose
Training Data	Source, composition, preprocessing	Item 3: Data governance (Art. 10)
Evaluation Data	Test set description, demographics	Item 7: Testing & validation
Metrics	Accuracy, fairness metrics, thresholds	Item 7: Testing & validation
Ethical Considerations	Bias findings, privacy risks, societal impact	Item 5: Risk management (Art. 9)
Caveats & Recommendations	Known limitations, deployment warnings	Item 11: Log & monitoring

Unlock the full lesson

You've read the first 2 sections. The rest of this lesson covers Building a Model Card Generator, What's Next — plus a hands-on lab, quiz, and project artifact.

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