WotC Hasbro CEO optimistic about AI in D&D and MTG’s future

[Oofta]

I'm given to understand that they (that is, the person who'd purchased the cards) did, in fact, have them legally. A retailer breaking the street date for when something goes on sale, even accidentally, is not an issue of criminal law, and even if it was the penalty wouldn't fall on the customer who received the embargoed set of cards.

Like I said, I don't follow MtG much. Knocking on someone's door, asking for a product they should not have had and replacing it with another set (something they did not need to do) just simply isn't mafia levels of intimidation like some people claim. It was also an isolated incident. One, admittedly I don't understand because I will never get why people are so passionate about a trading card game. Then again, there are a lot of things I don't understand like why people love football or why the NFL is categorized as a non-profit organization.

Does anyone remember how TSR threatened to sue everyone under the sun for any perceived sign of infringement? Do people expect corporations to never make a mistake or be completely altruistic?

 

[Jer]

LOL. They barely mention AI in the initial interview because the interviewer asked. Of course they are looking into AI, it's a big buzzword right now.

It's on the "investor buzzword bingo sheet" right now. Everyone has to find a way to shoehorn it into things that investors might be reading. The audience for the interview is the folks who read VentureBeat which means talking about the things on the bingo card.

In addition, what they discuss if you actually read the article is that it will be a tool for people to use, not a replacement.

I think folks are still right to be leery of it all. Generative AI is being hyped as a replacement for creativity and therefore a replacement for creative people. It isn't - it's at best a way to prompt your own brain into thinking of somethings you might not have thought of before, at worst it gives you generic drivel you could have come up with yourself - but it's being hyped that way. So the thought that Wizards could decide to replace actual artists on MtG with AI generated art trained from the original artists is something you expect a corporation to be doing.

Now what I think is actually going on is a) investor buzzword bingo - Cocks's primary job as CEO is seen by investors as making sure share price number go up and b) more investment in making a Peppa Pig chatbot that is safe for kids to use than anything going on on the WotC side of things. The question was framed from the perspective of a Wheel of Time LLM chatbot and he started his answer with references to D&D and MtG, but he threw in the Peppa Pig reference out of nowhere. Seriously - a plush Peppa Pig that actually holds conversations with a kid in Peppa's voice? Might as well let them print money. I can see how that would be on his mind.

But that doesn't mean folks are wrong to be wary of Hasbro. They're a big corporation - in the end they'll do what's best for their stock price. The trick to keeping them from doing stupid things is to make loud public outcries when they make motions towards doing stupid things. If it looks like bad PR is going to tank their share price they'll change direction pretty quick.

 

[Oofta]

The products of technology are tools.
The effect tools have on things depends on who is wielding them.
Big corporations will be among the biggest wielders (or their employees anyway - or individuals who become start-ups and sell out to big corporations or become them).
Modern wall-street capitalism doesn't tend to encourage corporations to look to the future.
Thank goodness for the EU regulators?

I have a lot of issues with corporations, anti-competitive practices, excessive price gouging still being blamed on the pandemic. But a company looking into AI and acknowledging that there may be a place for it in games? That doesn't rise to the level of mustache twirling villainy to me.

 

[Oofta]

It's on the "investor buzzword bingo sheet" right now. Everyone has to find a way to shoehorn it into things that investors might be reading. The audience for the interview is the folks who read VentureBeat which means talking about the things on the bingo card.


I think folks are still right to be leery of it all. Generative AI is being hyped as a replacement for creativity and therefore a replacement for creative people. It isn't - it's at best a way to prompt your own brain into thinking of somethings you might not have thought of before, at worst it gives you generic drivel you could have come up with yourself - but it's being hyped that way. So the thought that Wizards could decide to replace actual artists on MtG with AI generated art trained from the original artists is something you expect a corporation to be doing.

Now what I think is actually going on is a) investor buzzword bingo - Cocks's primary job as CEO is seen by investors as making sure share price number go up and b) more investment in making a Peppa Pig chatbot that is safe for kids to use than anything going on on the WotC side of things. The question was framed from the perspective of a Wheel of Time LLM chatbot and he started his answer with references to D&D and MtG, but he threw in the Peppa Pig reference out of nowhere. Seriously - a plush Peppa Pig that actually holds conversations with a kid in Peppa's voice? Might as well let them print money. I can see how that would be on his mind.

But that doesn't mean folks are wrong to be wary of Hasbro. They're a big corporation - in the end they'll do what's best for their stock price. The trick to keeping them from doing stupid things is to make loud public outcries when they make motions towards doing stupid things. If it looks like bad PR is going to tank their share price they'll change direction pretty quick.

Meanwhile even when they do things like clearly ban AI art or replace art "enhanced" by AI, they also get no credit. They are looking into AI because it has potential to be useful. Color me not surprised.

 

[Vaalingrade]

AI has tremendous potential to enrich humanity and help us solve problems.

Oh, actual AI totally does.

These large language models being used to mass produce sludge to create as big a dragnet and as much of a glut of lazy content as possible that are being called AI? Not only do they not, but they're poisoning the well and removing oxygen from the space that could produce actual AI of worth.

It's nothing but a hollow buzzword for cheap, profitable garbage now that's setting actual research and development as well as the prospects of adoption back decades to make money NOW NOW NOW.

 

[OB1]

It perhaps could. But you know, somehow, I don't think AI funded and controlled by the same forces of capital that have so far destroyed our planet and ruined just about everything else they touch will be the ones to do it.

Fair enough, though I would argue that your issue is not with AI or capitalism (which are tools), but rather with the laws we use to ensure that those tools are put to good use for society. You see the negative side of capitalism, I see billions of people lifted out of poverty and leading happier, healthier, more enriched lives because of it.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Fair enough, though I would argue that your issue is not with AI or capitalism (which are tools), but rather with the laws we use to ensure that those tools are put to good use for society. You see the negative side of capitalism, I see billions of people lifted out of poverty and leading happier, healthier, more enriched lives because of it.

Yeah, well, people ruin everything, don't they?

 

[Charlaquin]

Plus, I don't think it's some pure apathy. Netflix saying "Look, everyone in your house can use the same account, but you can't just pay for your mom's house, your sister's house, and your best friend's house too" isn't some kind of moral travesty. Everyone grumbled because we were all getting away with something before and they took that away.

Not that I don't think there's plenty of apathy, but eh....I can't bother to fight about it.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to restrict account sharing, it’s just the first time the reaction has been accepting enough that they’ve actually gone through with it. Which indicates we do collectively have the power to influence corporations to act in pro-consumer ways. We just can’t leverage that power unless enough of us care to bother to. I don’t know what it is about this time that finally got enough Netflix users to go with it, but I’m still pretty annoyed at those users, when we’ve managed to rebuff these attempts before.

Of course, this specific battle is a lot less important to fight, than many others, and I understand it’s just not possible for a person to get active about every single issue. At the end of the day, we do have to live in a society, which means having to participate in it. If one tries to boycott every company that does anything unethical, one would never be able to buy anything. So, I’m sympathetic to people who want to spend their finite political will on bigger things than saving some money on a TV subscription service.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's on the "investor buzzword bingo sheet" right now.

Ding! Got it.

They shouldn't be exploring AI as a way to generate content, they should be exploring AI as a way to replace the C-suite.

 

[Jer]

Meanwhile even when they do things like clearly ban AI art or replace art "enhanced" by AI, they also get no credit. They are looking into AI because it has potential to be useful. Color me not surprised.

If they're doing what you want them to do there's no need to raise alarm bells. It's only when they're going in a stupid direction that you need to raise the alarm.

It's not like Hasbro has feelings that get hurt when people get mad about something stupid they're doing. They're a corporation out to maximize profits - if they have a dumb idea that gets them bad PR and forces them to change plans I guess some guy who came up with the dumb idea might have his feelings hurt, but overall the corporation should actually be happy that they got the note that what they're planning is stupid with enough time to change directions and do something else.