Hasbro CEO Reiterates That AI Isn't Used to Make D&D Because of the Game's Audience and Creators

While Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is a big fan of AI, he reiterated in a recent interview that the technology is not used to make Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Recently, Cocks sat down with the Verge to discuss Hasbro's business and in particular how the company uses AI. While Cocks gave several examples of how AI is integrated within the company (it has a Peppa Pig AI provide feedback on Peppa Pig toys, for instance), he stated that not every facet of the company currently uses AI. "From a creative context, I think you have to think about it very carefully," Cocks said. "There are some brands that the audience, the creators, just don’t want it, so we don’t even have it in our pipelines for our video games or for Magic: The Gathering, or D&D. For things like toys where we’re basing it on existing IP, or like a long legacy of ideas, we are able to use it and use it pretty effectively."

The Dungeons & Dragons brand has strongly come out against AI, specifically when it comes to creative work. The brand currently bans the use of AI-generated artwork in its games and has repeatedly talked about how the game is made for people by people. However, Cocks has talked about his personal use of AI in his home D&D games and has strongly suggested integrating that technology into Dungeons & Dragons somehow.

Cocks previously bragged about how AI has been integrated into Hasbro's workflow, and the Verge interview talks about how AI has supplemented the business, mentioning that AI has been used to ideate toy ideas and simulate focus groups and play test labs. While Cocks sees AI as a way to "level up" the work of creatives as opposed to replacing them, he also admits that he's been wrong about technology disrupting the toy business before, specifically mentioning NFTs as an area that he got wrong in the past.

The interview also briefly mentioned the upcoming video game Dungeons & Dragons: Warlock, with Cocks noting that that game will be released in the "later part" of 2027.

 

[abolitionrpg]

SO they use it in toys because there is no one vocal about it. Sculptors used to be the ones that developed the toy ideas. Beware. Soon the community is going to relax on AI, there are already signs of it, and AI will be incorporated fully into D&D. Especially with the younger crowd growing with AI in their schooling. I haven't been to an education conference yet where they don't show you how to use AI in the classroom. These kids are not going to have the abhorrence Gen Z does for AI. I'm not that worried about AI in D&D, myself I can take it or leave it, but I speculate the bulwark against AI is going to lose.

Its already being accepted on a large scale.

indeed.

there are already monstrously large threads in this community and on this website just constantly posting AI images always with the context of 'aint this cool' or 'still not perfect' without any consideration that they are using the AI, manufacturing consent for use of AI, and normalizing the production of AI in every day interactions. it would be nice if some of these "communities" took a stand and moderated this stuff.

if the only argument against AI is that it is "slop" then we are in for a rude awakening as tech exponentially expands (as its iterations always do) and we are stuck in an argument of it cannot produce like a human... meanwhile the ecological, social, economical, and spiritual damage has already engrained itself into our world.

 

[abolitionrpg]

Well, the hope is that the bulwark will last long enough that people with decision-making power start to see how bad AI is at its job before that happens.

i think if our hope is based in the people who make themselves very rich off of disillusionment, inequity, and the power to be absolutely unaccountable to anyone, then we are in real trouble...

 

[abolitionrpg]

there are cases where taxation is an appropriate means to influence behavior, I consider this one of them. If it is the poor that smoke the most, that sounds like their priorities are screwed up and there is still room for hiking the taxes....

or perhaps it is the poor that smokes the most because they are a part of an underclass that does not have access to: education, medicine, safe working conditions, self determination, healthcare, etc. but what they do have is lots of isolation, nihilism, and a giant social apparatus that tells them and anyone who will listen that personal decision making is why you are poor and no the massive state structures that control and manipulate nearly every aspect of our lives.

what good is a tax if it will be recycled into the same system that already says you have to pay for healthcare, clean air, electricity, clean water, a roof over your head while the same people who own all those things get tax breaks to own them and free access to all the things that poor people pay taxes for?

taxes do not stop production.

 

[CleverNickName]

"There are some brands that the audience, the creators, just don’t want it."

It's me, I am audience.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

indeed.

there are already monstrously large threads in this community and on this website just constantly posting AI images always with the context of 'aint this cool' or 'still not perfect' without any consideration that they are using the AI, manufacturing consent for use of AI, and normalizing the production of AI in every day interactions. it would be nice if some of these "communities" took a stand and moderated this stuff.

if the only argument against AI is that it is "slop" then we are in for a rude awakening as tech exponentially expands (as its iterations always do) and we are stuck in an argument of it cannot produce like a human... meanwhile the ecological, social, economical, and spiritual damage has already engrained itself into our world.

Not for nothing but the guy who invented the term "manufacturing consent" was kinda famously on an island where no one respects the age of consent.

 

[abolitionrpg]

Not for nothing but the guy who invented the term "manufacturing consent" was kinda famously on an island where no one respects the age of consent.

indeed. but knowledge is for everyone and not invented or owned by one (potentially compromised) person, which is yet another reason AI should not exist.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The oldest Gen Alpha is 16. You'll forgive me if I dismiss what 16 years consider concerning or not, I hope.

Matters more than what 76 year olds co sider concerning or not, frankly. A lot more.

 

[Alzrius]

Matters more than what 76 year olds co sider concerning or not, frankly. A lot more.

I disagree; the 76 year olds can vote in this year's midterm elections.

 

[Scribe]

Matters more than what 76 year olds co sider concerning or not, frankly. A lot more.

Not today, what a 16 year old raised online thinks is likely tragic, and completely irrelevant lol.

In 5 years? Sure.

You know what Gen Z loved? What Gen Z was raised on? Social Media.

Look how that's turned out.

 

[Artamo]

Not today, what a 16 year old raised online thinks is likely tragic, and completely irrelevant lol.

In 5 years? Sure.

You know what Gen Z loved? What Gen Z was raised on? Social Media.

Look how that's turned out.

I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to label one particular generation for falling prey to social media’s ills. I’ve heard and have seen more than a few boomers and Gen Xers go down that rabbit hole hard.