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."

 

[Incenjucar]

I feel that AI is unlikely to increase revenue in a significant way. The income of players will not increase. Online play already exists and is free. Gaming tools already exist.

I do not think the market for AI DMs or players is terribly large, and it would compete with real gaming communities. The amount of work needed to make a good system of this nature is substantial, costly, and risky.

As such, I expect AI to be primarily used to reduce how much they have to pay people.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think we really make much of a difference in corporate direction, at least not on a topic like this. If there's much of anything to the talk to begin with, which I also doubt.

I think that's a very reasonable take. But, we can point it out. We can talk about it. We can note that there's elements that suck about this and talk about how layoffs are a problem and about how we (well, I, and maybe some others) value products created by people with their own ideas and their own effort.

I think a lot of people exaggerate the potential of our current AI direction. ChatGPT (GPT stands for Generative pre-trained transformer) works by making connections between words and then figures out how to mimic what it was fed by following those same patterns. But it's gotten as good as it has on the transformation piece because of all the pre-training it's had. Except that training is data and text they hoovered up from the internet. There's not really anything left to train it on and they may be facing a dead end sooner rather than later.

It's like people looking at how fast a baby grows in the first year or two and extrapolating out that in 5 years they're going to be 20 foot tall. AI can be an aid, I doubt it will ever be a replacement. At least not with the current models and not in the foreseeable future.

I think there's a point, in the logic of someone running a business, at which the quality is good "enough" and the use of the AI is cheap "enough" that it makes a lower head-count using AI worth it. That's bending the cost curve. I think that's probably already happening at WotC to at least a small degree.

And whenever someone gets laid off in the US, it's a bit of a tragedy.

 

[Incenjucar]

Thinking about it, I could see one way AI could have an impact: Helping indecisive and distracted players. If it could give them a tiny tiny menu of options they could just push the button on it could speed up play for some tables.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I do not think the market for AI DMs or players is terribly large, and it would compete with real gaming communities.

Yeah, I don't think EA or Activision-Blizzard are sitting up nights, worrying that their empires are going to be brought down by computer-generated text-based adventures in 2025.

 

[Oofta]

People have been getting laid off because of technology

I think that's a very reasonable take. But, we can point it out. We can talk about it. We can note that there's elements that suck about this and talk about how layoffs are a problem and about how we (well, I, and maybe some others) value products created by people with their own ideas and their own effort.



I think there's a point, in the logic of someone running a business, at which the quality is good "enough" and the use of the AI is cheap "enough" that it makes a lower head-count using AI worth it. That's bending the cost curve. I think that's probably already happening at WotC to at least a small degree.

And whenever someone gets laid off in the US, it's a bit of a tragedy.

People have been getting laid off since that flint napper got replaced when someone figured out how to make bronze. I've been laid off myself. It sucked, but tragedy? Nah. Nobody should expect lifetime employment any more.

As far as WotC, they've taken a stance against AI art. I don't think AI will be able to write modules anytime soon. On the other hand perhaps you could get a DM assistant or generated PC portraits. Things people are already using AI for. I doubt it will be developed internally but they may be able to license and/or customize something.

 

[Staffan]

People have been getting laid off since that flint napper got replaced when someone figured out how to make bronze. I've been laid off myself. It sucked, but tragedy? Nah. Nobody should expect lifetime employment any more.

Problem is that when you remove people's economic security, you get social unrest.

 

[I'm A Banana]

People have been getting laid off since that flint napper got replaced when someone figured out how to make bronze. I've been laid off myself. It sucked, but tragedy? Nah. Nobody should expect lifetime employment any more.

As long as we make survival contingent on employment (food costs money, you need to buy housing, medical care isn't free), every firing is a significant survival risk to an individual (sometimes more than one individual in the case of families). All it takes is a few bad months to wipe out most people. If it wasn't a crisis for you, it's because you're lucky, not because it's not a problem.

That's part of the cruelty currently being done with AI, and also part of where we can mitigate human suffering, if we decide to.

It's also not an ancient thing. Flint knapper wasn't a job you could be laid off from that provided you with housing, food, and water. "D&D Designer" is. We can mitigate the suffering AI is currently causing.

As far as WotC is concerned, if Cocks is talking about "bending the cost curve," he's talking about exposing more human beings to more risk and deprivation, and that's absolutely worth pushing back on. If the ultimate response to people being laid off is "it's not my problem, it'll be fine, no one works forever," that's the kind of shallow response that creates more suffering.

As far as WotC, they've taken a stance against AI art. I don't think AI will be able to write modules anytime soon. On the other hand perhaps you could get a DM assistant or generated PC portraits. Things people are already using AI for. I doubt it will be developed internally but they may be able to license and/or customize something.

I mean, in this thread, we have an example of Chat GPT writing a module that people in this thread were happy with. So it might already be there (for some early adopters, at least).

Cocks freely admitted they're currently using AI aids in development.

The initial question was about bending the cost curve, not about developing novel new AI toys.

The world at hand is one where WotC is using some AI to replace human labor. Sounds like it's in a small, limited way, but using it nonetheless.

The difference between now and "WotC lays off half of the D&D team" is one of scale, not one of capability.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I see.

I would describe it as 'take business from' rather than 'steal'. Technology is often a double-edged sword.

Those are two different things and the technology is so robust and versatile that it does both!

But by the testimonial of the actual tech companies investing in AI, they need to steal content to train. Apparently --again according to them--preventing them from stealing content would make advancement of the tech impossible.

 

[Oofta]

Problem is that when you remove people's economic security, you get social unrest.

That assumes wide scale layoffs. I don't see that happening because I think people have exaggerated expectations of the current approach to AI based on how quickly it grew. Time will tell.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The idea that because the house has been on fire for a long time, people are being unrealistic and foolish for asking about maybe getting a hose is how we got to this point.