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

[eyeheartawk]

There are a lot of technologies we would be better off without. I work with anthropologists who would argue, with tongue only slightly in cheek, that agriculture is such a technology. Maybe a world without computers, or the internet, or even agriculture would be a better one. Maybe it would be worse. But we don’t live in those worlds, and it doesn’t do us much good to fantasize about how much better or worse they would be. The world we do live in has computers and the internet, and is rapidly developing large language models colloquially called AI. Since this technology has such potential to do harm, it behooves us now to do as much as we can to try to minimize the harm they will do.

I once tried to get a tractor made in the last five years into gear. Could not do it. They are hideously complicated machines now.

 

[Zardnaar]

There are a lot of technologies we would be better off without. I work with anthropologists who would argue, with tongue only slightly in cheek, that agriculture is such a technology. Maybe a world without computers, or the internet, or even agriculture would be a better one. Maybe it would be worse. But we don’t live in those worlds, and it doesn’t do us much good to fantasize about how much better or worse they would be. The world we do live in has computers and the internet, and is rapidly developing large language models colloquially called AI. Since this technology has such potential to do harm, it behooves us now to do as much as we can to try to minimize the harm they will do.

Should probably clarified internet as social media.

 

[Zardnaar]

I once tried to get a tractor made in the last five years into gear. Could not do it. They are hideously complicated machines now.

Top Gear did asking. 1 minute to start up a car. They couldn't get the door open.

 

[Charlaquin]

Should probably clarified internet as social media.

Yeah, I definitely think we would be better off without social media. But that fight has already been lost. The AI fight is still ongoing.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, I definitely think we would be better off without social media. But that fight has already been lost. The AI fight is still ongoing.

I'm batting on 50/50 WW3/major war next 10 years tbh. See what happens. Kinda happy living here anyway. Even then kinda wanna relocate.

Yay.

 

[Meech17]

I once tried to get a tractor made in the last five years into gear. Could not do it. They are hideously complicated machines now.

A few years ago NPR was covering the John Deere situation in regards to right to repair.

They interviewed a man who operated a cotton farm, and he was descended from a slave who worked on a cotton plantation. He said that the combine he operated would harvest more during the time he ate his lunch in the air conditioned cab (He could eat while it harvested, as it was GPS guided and essentially ran itself) than his great grandfather would harvest in an entire week manually.

While it's amazing to think about the fact that these machines are so advanced and efficient now.. On the flipside however these farmers are essentially held hostage by the technology, and the company that licenses it to them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think you have to narrow the definition of AI you're working with before I can sign off on an unqualified "We'd be better off without it" given some of the things I know are going on in medicine dependent on it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you have to narrow the definition of AI you're working with before I can sign off on an unqualified "We'd be better off without it" given some of the things I know are going on in medicine dependent on it.

Still falls into the nice to have vs risks.

Somewhat realistic scenario vs skynet doomsday.

Mass job layoffs making a precarious situation even worse. Lots of angry people.

A few people get saved in medicine that would not have made it.

What happens when you have large amounts of angry unemployed people in precarious economic times?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m still waiting to hear who’s going to buy the burgers once all the humans are replaced by robots and “AI”.

They'll be delivered to our homes via drone, and the cost wirelessly deducted from our accounts, with as little input from us as they can manage.

Our society is this close to going full Ferengi. Come on guys, we can do it!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think you have to narrow the definition of AI you're working with before I can sign off on an unqualified "We'd be better off without it" given some of the things I know are going on in medicine dependent on it.

Generative AI as touted by tech bros and people who write quarterly reports.

The kind that is 'AI' in the same way nuts are fruits: 'technically'.