At 6:45 p.m. on a Wednesday, downtown Toronto professionals sat in a bar with drinks in their hands and pasta on their tables — just as a lecture about AI’s ability to empathize got underway.
The crowd was there for Brains & Barstools, one of a growing number of events bringing lectures into Toronto bars. Each week, professors and experts give talks in bars, inviting guests to discuss everything from music’s effect on the brain to the politics of incarceration while sharing drinks and conversation. In Toronto, similar events include Sip and Scholar and RISE Edutainment. The gatherings are filling a niche for young professionals looking for connection and intellectual engagement in a more relaxed social setting.
Events have been taking place weekly since last fall at different bars downtown, most often Oria on King and Black Lab Brewing. Brains & Barstools creator Disha Bobby says the venues have been eager to host a curious, intellectually minded crowd. With work routines and social obligations dominating adult life, Bobby says curiosity — one of the most human things we share — is often pushed to the wayside. “Learning has become something we used to love rather than something we actively make time for,” she tells The Star.
These “edutainment” nights have become more common in cities around the world, popping up in places like New York, San Francisco and Beijing. According to Bobby, events like these are appealing to younger audiences who crave depth and community: “(Young people) want to think, connect and feel part of something meaningful, without the pressure of a classroom or the exclusivity of traditional cultural spaces.”
As people settled into their seats for a talk earlier this year, The Empathy Machine — a presentation on how AI is becoming more empathetic by professor Michael Inzlicht, PhD — attendees started talking quietly at their tables. Two of the guests were longtime friends Rachel Morrison and Veronica Cho. “I love coming to an environment full of people interested in learning–I haven’t done that since university, and I’m hungry for it,” says Morrison, who works at a nonprofit for homelessness support. “I love that this was created for adults interested in learning.”
Cho, who discovered the events on social media and brought Morrison to one last month on themes of sex, money and love in Jane Austen novels, agrees. “It melds the chance to be in a restaurant, meet new people and have some drinks and food, with the chance to hear a lecture,” the health policy researcher says. “It’s the intersection of the best parts of learning and the best parts of having a fun night out.” The pair has already secured tickets for another talk on the political economy of incarceration in Canada.
Once the event’s start time hit, Bobby invited patrons to ‘break the ice’ by asking their neighbour one of the questions on the cards in front of them. What inspired you lately? What’s the most interesting place you’ve been to recently? If you could ask an expert about anything, what would it be? “What sets Brains & Barstools apart is that it’s about building community,” Bobby told The Star. “The evenings are intentionally curated to encourage bonding.”
And they do — for 15 minutes, attendees turned to one another for the icebreaker questions.
People were there to meet other people as much as they were to learn, it seemed. Then Inzlicht, a professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and the Rotman School of Management, took the mic. Accompanied by a slideshow presentation broadcast on screens around the room, he discussed how and why AI is getting better at empathy, why more women have AI romantic partners than men and what happens when AI starts to care about us too much.
“I like beer, and I like talking to people,” Inzlicht says of why he wanted to speak at the event. He even wrote a paper on why PhD students should drink more (hint: more social cohesion, creative thinking and cross-group collaboration). “I suspect there were fewer people here on their phones than in a typical lecture of mine.”
As the event wrapped up, guests swarmed Bobby at the front. One Toronto Metropolitan University law school student wanted to reserve a block of tickets for her February birthday party. An undergraduate student at Queen’s University asked Bobby to consider running the events in Kingston. Bobby said she’ll look into it.
Bobby hopes Brains & Barstools reminds people of the value of curiosity and blurs the line between our intellectual and social lives. “Brains & Barstools treats ideas as something meant to be shared, debated, laughed about and enjoyed together,” she says. “I wanted to create a space that reminds people that it’s OK – and actually joyful – to be curious again, without needing credentials, background knowledge or a formal setting.”
Events have sold out since they began, with 80 to 100 people attending each talk and Bobby filling seats into March and planning to expand to more cities in April and beyond. “The fact that people choose to come out on a weeknight, sit in a bar, listen closely, ask thoughtful questions and engage with big ideas feels like a powerful statement about what Toronto is hungry for,” Bobby says. “Ideas, experiences, consumption and conversation.”
