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."

 

[Hussar]

Their website says that the software is powered by AI, so I would assume so.

Looking at the video of what it's doing, my guess would probably be stable diffusion of some kind, but it could also be a more typical GAN.

While they could be doing something like using your input as the basis for prompt engineering being fed into an LLM, that seems unlikely to me given the consistency this looks like it's producing.

Heh. That's a lot of 3 letter acronyms. But, thanks.

So, I could totally see Sigil using something like Dungeon Alchemist to help users build 3d environments quickly. Would this be a problem?

 

[Daztur]

I’m surprised by the 30 or 40 players and all have used AI for character development in some shape or form. Must be different socio-economic level of players, or time strapped, in that group cause none of our group have “played” with AI for anything with their many characters…or art or story elements.

I'm more surprised that he claims to play with 30-40 people regularly as that is rather obvious naughty word.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Heh. That's a lot of 3 letter acronyms. But, thanks.

So, I could totally see Sigil using something like Dungeon Alchemist to help users build 3d environments quickly. Would this be a problem?

I honestly don't know, this isn't my exact area of expertise (most of my AI work is in computer vision and autonomous flight, so I keep up with this stuff on the side but it's not my focus). But judging from what Dungeon Alchemist is capable of, it certainly sounds reasonable.

I would still expect weirdness, even so, though. Little details to be off and such. These are still models, and so we must remember the adage: "all models are wrong, but some are useful."

What is ironic about this sort of thing is that hallucations would be beneficial, if applied in controlled circumstances.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm more surprised that he claims to play with 30-40 people regularly as that is rather obvious naughty word.

No it isn't. Regularly doesn't have to mean weekly, could be that he plays with some more often than others but they're still regular players.

 

[Incenjucar]

I imagine he's talking a lot more about professional activities and experiments rather than typical organic hobbyist activities.When I was a game tester I "played video games with" tons of people and "played" all kinds of games that I would never so much as look at.

 

[Valetudo]

I for one look forward to our new AI overlords. Hey can my new dm ai have voice options, like cartoon dm or Matt mercer?

 

[Oofta]

I'm more surprised that he claims to play with 30-40 people regularly as that is rather obvious naughty word.

I'm no longer very active in public games, but for several years I was. I probably played with that many people over the course of a year, with most being once every month or every other month. So it is possible, I wouldn't be surprised if they have ongoing AL type games internal to the company.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Like I needed another reason to never buy any WotC (or D&D) products anymore ....

 

[Von Ether]

AI is one of those thing that would be amazing for hobbyist and one-person shops or to be used to improve voice to text for dictation (If they are using AI right now, it still sucks)

For companies that have a budget, the real danger is not just lost artist revenue, it's the idea that a bean counter thinks this or that is "good enough" when they are too lazy to even count the number of fingers in a picture.

 

[the Jester]

I work in an environment that uses AI to handle jobs that they don't have the staffing to handle, and those jobs have affected hundreds of thousands of people. I've been to a number of different trainings about things I can use it for in the job I do right now. I say this because I do have some experience with it.

And I just don't see what I'm going to use AI to play D&D with. I suppose it can generate some random maps or character illustrations, but when we get to color text for room descriptions, I think we're starting to push it. I'm genuinely interested to see what people expect to do with it in a game.

I have a dm who has used AI to generate pictures, boxed text, custom monsters, and even plots. He has to tweak everything a bit, but it does a bunch of the work for him.