Audit Cards: Contextualizing AI Evaluations

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Staufer, Leon, Yang, Mick, Reuel, Anka, Casper, Stephen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Staufer, Leon
Yang, Mick
Reuel, Anka
Casper, Stephen
author_facet Staufer, Leon
Yang, Mick
Reuel, Anka
Casper, Stephen
contents AI governance frameworks increasingly rely on audits, yet the results of their underlying evaluations require interpretation and context to be meaningfully informative. Even technically rigorous evaluations can offer little useful insight if reported selectively or obscurely. Current literature focuses primarily on technical best practices, but evaluations are an inherently sociotechnical process, and there is little guidance on reporting procedures and context. Through literature review, stakeholder interviews, and analysis of governance frameworks, we propose "audit cards" to make this context explicit. We identify six key types of contextual features to report and justify in audit cards: auditor identity, evaluation scope, methodology, resource access, process integrity, and review mechanisms. Through analysis of existing evaluation reports, we find significant variation in reporting practices, with most reports omitting crucial contextual information such as auditors' backgrounds, conflicts of interest, and the level and type of access to models. We also find that most existing regulations and frameworks lack guidance on rigorous reporting. In response to these shortcomings, we argue that audit cards can provide a structured format for reporting key claims alongside their justifications, enhancing transparency, facilitating proper interpretation, and establishing trust in reporting.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_13839
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Audit Cards: Contextualizing AI Evaluations
Staufer, Leon
Yang, Mick
Reuel, Anka
Casper, Stephen
Computers and Society
AI governance frameworks increasingly rely on audits, yet the results of their underlying evaluations require interpretation and context to be meaningfully informative. Even technically rigorous evaluations can offer little useful insight if reported selectively or obscurely. Current literature focuses primarily on technical best practices, but evaluations are an inherently sociotechnical process, and there is little guidance on reporting procedures and context. Through literature review, stakeholder interviews, and analysis of governance frameworks, we propose "audit cards" to make this context explicit. We identify six key types of contextual features to report and justify in audit cards: auditor identity, evaluation scope, methodology, resource access, process integrity, and review mechanisms. Through analysis of existing evaluation reports, we find significant variation in reporting practices, with most reports omitting crucial contextual information such as auditors' backgrounds, conflicts of interest, and the level and type of access to models. We also find that most existing regulations and frameworks lack guidance on rigorous reporting. In response to these shortcomings, we argue that audit cards can provide a structured format for reporting key claims alongside their justifications, enhancing transparency, facilitating proper interpretation, and establishing trust in reporting.
title Audit Cards: Contextualizing AI Evaluations
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.13839