Rainer Rehak

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Rainer Rehak Porträt
CC BY-SA European Climate Foundation

Contact

rainer.rehak [at] wzb.eu
Weizenbaum Institute
Hardenbergstraße 32
D-10623 Berlin
Visiting Researcher of the Research Group
Globalization, Work, and Production

CV

Rainer Rehak is a researcher with the groups „Digitalization, Sustainability, and Participation” and "Technology Power and Domination" at the Weizenbaum Institute as well as a visiting researcher at the WZB. His PhD thesis deals with systemic IT security and societal data protection. He studied computer science and philosophy in Berlin and Hong Kong and has been working on the implications of the computerization of society for over 15 years. His research interests include collective privacy, computer science and ethics, technological fictions, digitalization and sustainability, convivial and democratic digital technology, the epistemic foundations of automation, digital (de)colonialism, as well as the implications and limitations of AI systems.

He is an expert witness for parliaments (e.g., the German Bundestag) and courts (e.g., the German Constitutional Court) and also publishes regularly in non-scientific outlets. Together with other digital policy and environmental organizations, he initiated the "Bits & Bäume" conference series for digitization and sustainability. Rainer Rehak also serves as Co-Chair of the Forum of Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility (FIfF).

Selected Publications

Rehak, R. (2026): Unverhältnismäßige KI? (Weizenbaum Discussion Papers; 56). Weizenbaum Institute: Berlin. https://doi.org/10.34669/WI.DP/56

Rehak, R.; Woodcock, T. K. (2026) Automating civilian harm: On Israel's use of the AI-enabled targeting system Lavender in Gaza and International Humanitarian Law. In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '26). https://doi.org/10.1145/3805689.3812357

Bendor, R., Murray-Rust, D., Rehak, R. (2026) ‘Small AI: A Degrowth Imaginary for Designing with/for Artificial Intelligence’. Design Research Society Conference (DRS 2026). https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1193

Rehak, R. (2026) Catastrophic Computation. On the Impossibility of Sustainable Artificial Intelligence. In: Hagedorn, L., Schmid, U., Winter, S., Woltran, S. (eds) Digital Humanism. DIGHUM 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 16319. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-11108-1_8

Rehak, R.; Ullrich, A.; Vladova, G. (2025) Contesting Openness in AI. Reflections on the transformative value and participatory potential of open source AI. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (GoodIT '25). https://doi.org/10.1145/3748699.3749795

Rehak, R. (2025) AI Narrative Breakdown. A Critical Assessment of Power and Promise. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1250–1260. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715275.3732083

Steig, F., Koenig, P. D., Marquardt, J., Oels, A., Radtke, J., Rehak, R., & Weiland, S. (2025) Sustainability powered by digitalization? (Re-)politicizing the debate. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2025.2521181

Rehak, R. (2023) Zwischen Macht und Mythos. Eine kritische Einordnung aktueller KI-Narrative. In: Dossier „In Sachen KI. Zur Diskussion um eine schillernde Technologie“. Soziopolis: Gesellschaft beobachten. Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung.
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-91379-4

Rehak, R. (2023) Artificial Intelligence for Real Sustainability. In: Jankowski, P., Höfner, A., Hoffmann, M. L., Rohde, F., Rehak, R. & Graf, J. (Eds.) (2023). Shaping Digital Transformation for a Sustainable Society. Contributions from Bits & Bäume. Technische Universität Berlin. https://doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-17526

Rehak, R., Kühne, C.R., Bock, K. (2022). Analysis and Constructive Criticism of the Official Data Protection Impact Assessment of the German Corona-Warn-App. In: Proceedings of the APF 2022, LNCS, vol 13279. Ppp. 119–134, Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07315-1_8, https://hdl.handle.net/10419/264865

Rehak, R. (2021) The Language Labyrinth: Constructive Critique on the Terminology Used in the AI Discourse. In: Verdegem, P. (ed.) AI for Everyone: Critical Perspectives. Pp. 87–102. London: University of Westminster Press. https://doi.org/10.16997/book55.f