Due to an electrical outage, we’re running a backup episode of Over Coffee® this week. Please enjoy this reposting of one of our top episodes of 2025!

“We are so not ready,” says anthropologist, futurist, AI ethicist, broadcaster and educator Dr. Lollie Mancey.

She’s discussing AI–and the challenges its high-speed adoption is presenting to society.

Dr. Mancey, who is Programme Director at University College Dublin’s Innovation Academy, sees multiple problems with the way AI is infiltrating our lives. Among them: the ways artificial intelligence excludes some segments of the population; the perception that it will make humans “obsolete”; and a general blind acceptance, without questioning, of the ways it’s being presented by technology companies.

Since AI is inevitable in all aspects of life and future industry, she adds, we need to explore, experiment and ask questions. And most of all, see it as a supplement to our talents, as opposed to supplanting them.

“You can play with it as a tool, but it must never replace us,” she says.

The challenge–and the “why”

As an award-winning storyteller and keynote speaker, Dr. Mancey likes to challenge her listeners to explore new ideas. Within the next three to five years, she says, ninety percent of us may have agentic AI involved in our lives. Consequently, she explains, all of us need to imagine the ways we can have “a place at the table” as artificial intelligence evolves.

Dr. Mancey talked about her background, some of her research in AI and the directions she recommends everyone take, to stay proactive and collaborative with artificial intelligence in education and the future workplace.

On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:

• The learning journey that led to Dr. Mancey’s current career;

• Some of the current factors that could have a negative effect as AI permeates all sectors;

• Ways to prepare for the future workplace, to give everyone a voice amid the spread of AI;

• Some of the benefits of AI for the educational sector and future workplace;

• One of her favorite experiences, learning from her students in a collaborative, as opposed to a traditional “lecture” approach to learning;

• How arts-oriented people can stay “the human in the loop”;

• How educators could reach students who may not currently have access to technology;

• Some of Dr. Mancey’s favorite current resources;

• Some of the “fun tricks” she uses, in her own interactions with AI;

• One of her more surprising interactions, during her research, with her “AI companion”;

• An intriguing fact about the way we start our days and how those first actions of the day can affect our creativity!;

• How to get past “imposter syndrome” with AI;

• Where “robot rights” might come in, in the future.