Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks Talks AI Usage in D&D [UPDATED!]

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is convinced that the Dungeons & Dragons franchise will support some kind of AI usage in the future. Speaking today at a Goldman Sachs event, Cocks spoke about how AI products could soon support Dungeons & Dragons and other Hasbro brands. Asked about whether AI has the potential to "bend the cost curve" in terms of entertainment development or digital gaming, and how it's being used in the toy and content industries, Cocks said the following:

"Inside of development, we've already been using AI. It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid. I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI. If you look at a typical D&D player....I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it. We need to do it carefully, we need to do it responsibly, we need to make sure we pay creators for their work, and we need to make sure we're clear when something is AI-generated. But the themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player introduction, using AI for emergent storytelling, I think you're going to see that not just our hardcore brands like D&D but also multiple of our brands."

Wizards of the Coast representatives has repeatedly said that Dungeons & Dragons is a game made by people for people, as multiple AI controversies has surrounded the brand and its parent company. Wizards updated its freelance contracts to explicitly prohibit use of AI and has pulled down AI-generated artwork that was submitted for Bigby's Presents: Glory of the Giants in 2023 after they learned it was made using AI tools.

A FAQ related to AI specifically notes that "Hasbro has a vast portfolio of 1900+ brands of which Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons are two – two very important, cherished brands. Each brand is going to approach its products differently. What is in the best interest of Trivial Pursuit is likely quite different than that of Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons." This statement acknowledges that Hasbro may use AI for other brands, while also stating that Wizards is trying to keep AI-generated artwork away from the game. However, while Wizards seems to want to keep AI away from D&D and Magic, their parent company's CEO seems to think that AI and D&D aren't naturally opposed.

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UPDATE -- Greg Tito, who was WotC's communications director until recently, commented on BlueSky: "I'm deeply mistrustful of AI and don't want people using it anywhere near my D&D campaigns."

 

[Emerikol]

Because techbro scumbags are trying to rush it down our throats in EVERY aspect of our lives and people oppose it in their leisure activities for all the reasons we oppose them everywhere else.

Which are? I get fearing an super intelligent AI taking over the world but what other fears? AI taking your job? Technology has never been successfully suppressed.

I doubt we are going to have an AI DM any time soon. We might have some really far better DM player aids though because of AI.

 

[Oofta]

Which are? I get fearing an super intelligent AI taking over the world but what other fears? AI taking your job? Technology has never been successfully suppressed.

I doubt we are going to have an AI DM any time soon. We might have some really far better DM player aids though because of AI.

There are people who are really, really anti-technology. Which is funny because we're having this discourse using technology that has massive repercussions. I have had people tell me that we were better off before the industrial revolution because they thought life was somehow "better" back then. It wasn't.

So we can either utilize the advancements of technology and figure out how we're going to adjust to it or we can stick our heads in the sand. Personally? I think a lot of AI prognostications are extremely overhyped, but AI will continue to evolve and change our lives no matter what we do. I also don't think we'll have AI DMs anytime in the foreseeable future (and if we did would that be so terrible?) but things that help me become a better DM? Bring it on.

 

[tetrasodium]

Which are? I get fearing an super intelligent AI taking over the world but what other fears? AI taking your job? Technology has never been successfully suppressed.

I think that the post you responded to is silly and think that applies to most of the ai hysteria over the last couple years until we start raising artists in Plato's cave or something...

Moving on to the part not rooted entirely in subjective opinion...

I doubt we are going to have an AI DM any time soon. We might have some really far better DM player aids though because of AI.

There is some meat to discuss on this kind of thing though. You are kind of describing an AGI there &we are somewhere between light-years and one more compile from an unexpected AGI. The trouble there is that ai is at the level where it's use in ttrpgs doesn't extend much further than existing vtt based automation existing map generators & video games... but we already have examples of the tail wagging the dog with the lead rules designer talking about making changes for video games ∆. 2014 wasn't exactly the edition of strong gm support for wotc hasn't demonstrated any more interest in appealing to the needs of GM's in the 2024 dmg than they have with ai and vtt stuff... There is absolutely no reason yet demonstrated by wotc to expect or even suspect the kind of gm tools you are talking about over the current needs of video games target being demonstrated.

∆ir produce flame and bg3

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I doubt we are going to have an AI DM any time soon. We might have some really far better DM player aids though because of AI.

I work in an office. Every day I get done more work then a team of 3-6 people with my skills could have in 1960s. I do so because I have a computer with LOTs of work aids on it.
I do not get paid what 3 people did in 1960s or 70s when adjusted for inflation (I may not make a full 3 even if you don't) let alone 6.

I used to work in call centers as a phone rep, before that in stores. Phone reps are being replaced by computers all the time and nobody likes it (How often do YOU yell "representative" into a phone?).
1 cashier can run 6-10 self checkouts, so where walmart used to have 3-5 registers open now they have 1-2 and self check.

there ARE computers coming for all of our jobs. It is GOING to happen.


I would NOT trade my life today (even with my depression and anxiety and financial instability) for the life of the people who in 1965 were working harder and getting less done, without those computers. Because in exchange for that I could not be on here, tic tok redit ect... heck my gaming is currently on roll20 I couldn't do that. I met my wife through facebook... so if it was reset to 1965, or even 1985 technology I couldn't do that...

 

[cranberry]

Or ... the majority if not virtually all of them could just be fellow gamers at a company that makes games. Not everyone is in a mad scramble to get face time with the boss. Your statement isn't a reflection on Cock, but it's pretty denigrating to everyone that plays with him.

Human nature and corporate politics are what they are, and they exist in all companies, even the ones you like.

 

[Oofta]

Human nature and corporate politics are what they are, and they exist in all companies, even the ones you like.

I've worked with CEOs. They're just people like everyone else. Meanwhile people brown nose, others don't. To imply they are all, or at least the majority, suck ups? That's insulting to those people.

 

[Bunch]

I work in an office. Every day I get done more work then a team of 3-6 people with my skills could have in 1960s. I do so because I have a computer with LOTs of work aids on it.
I do not get paid what 3 people did in 1960s or 70s when adjusted for inflation (I may not make a full 3 even if you don't) let alone 6.

I used to work in call centers as a phone rep, before that in stores. Phone reps are being replaced by computers all the time and nobody likes it (How often do YOU yell "representative" into a phone?).
1 cashier can run 6-10 self checkouts, so where walmart used to have 3-5 registers open now they have 1-2 and self check.

there ARE computers coming for all of our jobs. It is GOING to happen.


I would NOT trade my life today (even with my depression and anxiety and financial instability) for the life of the people who in 1965 were working harder and getting less done, without those computers. Because in exchange for that I could not be on here, tic tok redit ect... heck my gaming is currently on roll20 I couldn't do that. I met my wife through facebook... so if it was reset to 1965, or even 1985 technology I couldn't do that...

Exactly!

My senior year in college (Chem E) my project was to design a full wastewater treatment plant with primary, secondary & tertiary treatment, size all pumps and estimate all costs. By comparison my professor worked with a team of 3 others to design just a single distillation column when he was a senior.

Technology makes us more efficient. You still need qualified people to check the output of those systems.

The world is overall better for all this technology.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Cock's 30 "imaginary friends"?

Come on Sly, you can be better than that.

I'll try to be nicer to multi-millionaire CEOs of billion-dollar companies....

I'm sure me making fun of him is less stressful to him than he attacking my entire business and hobby back in 2023 was to me.

Also, I don't hang around Goldman Sachs "Communacopias" so I doubt he cares what I have to say.

Now, is Cock's anecdotal experience, regardless of sample size, meaningful? Not really.

He thought it was: "There’s not a single person who doesn’t use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That’s a clear signal that we need to be embracing it."

But I am so tired of folks trying to call him out as a liar, just because his experience does not match theirs.

Out of the 3,800 GMs and players I surveyed, one in three use generative AI. So it's more than just my own experience.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Personally, I find the whole idea of casting shade on the claim as another example of toxic fandom.

I'm not a fan of Chris Cocks. I'm not a fan of Hasbro. I'm a fan of the RPG hobby. I love it to death. I fail to see how making joke about a rich CEO is toxic fandom towards the RPG hobby but I guess we each get to decide what that means to us.

 

[SlyFlourish]

In case folks are interested, I recently posted this article and talked about AI use in RPGs on my Talk Show.