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.

---

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."

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

I agree.

I also think that because we live in a world where being paid for our work is how we access food, housing, and healthcare, replacing a human with cheap AI ("bending the cost curve") is not a necessary or defensible way to adjust.

Yet it is a very likely short-term way companies will choose to adjust, even if AI remains relatively low-capability.

And in that way, Cocks's response was disappointing. Alternately, he could have responded that he doesn't see AI significantly impacting the cost of development, however they decide to use it going forward.

 

[Dire Bare]

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.



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."



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.

Chris Cocks is a CEO of a large corporation, but he's also a human being worthy of the same respect and courtesy we all are.

Did he attack you or your business personally last year? Or make decisions through Hasbro that were not friendly to the publisher and fan community? Either way, if you aren't happy with him and his decisions affecting D&D, that's understandable.

But there is so much negativity in the fan community right now, that attacking him, calling him a liar . . . even if we're just "making fun" . . . over his claim that he games with 30-40 folks and they all use AI in their D&D games . . . is just unnecessary. It's a reasonable claim that simply doesn't warrant folks nitpicking it to death.

Disagreeing with him that his anecdotal experience should be cause for WotC to incorporate AI into D&D . . . that's pretty reasonable. I'm with you on that part!

You are, of course, free to hold and express any opinion on Cocks that you like. You don't have to listen to me, I'm not your mom! I just find it frustrating and disappointing that a creator and important voice in our community is giving in to the negativity.

 

[tetrasodium]

Chris Cocks is a CEO of a large corporation, but he's also a human being worthy of the same respect and courtesy we all are.

Did he attack you or your business personally last year? Or make decisions through Hasbro that were not friendly to the publisher and fan community? Either way, if you aren't happy with him and his decisions affecting D&D, that's understandable.

But there is so much negativity in the fan community right now, that attacking him, calling him a liar . . . even if we're just "making fun" . . . over his claim that he games with 30-40 folks and they all use AI in their D&D games . . . is just unnecessary. It's a reasonable claim that simply doesn't warrant folks nitpicking it to death.

That goes both ways. It would be generous to say that the original statement he made was obviously flawed in ways that are so dubious that it invites criticism of using it to support the claims made.

Disagreeing with him that his anecdotal experience should be cause for WotC to incorporate AI into D&D . . . that's pretty reasonable. I'm with you on that part!

The idea that he could actively play with that may people somehow associated with him is not the part under the knife of criticism and doubt. It's how deep into the extreme atypical end of the scale they are and if the claims about ai use are completely meaningless as a result of it being a work activity set by an SOP

You are, of course, free to hold and express any opinion on Cocks that you like. You don't have to listen to me, I'm not your mom! I just find it frustrating and disappointing that a creator and important voice in our community is giving in to the negativity.

Notice that through all of your talk of negativity and such that you have made no effort to actually address the reasoning that others have given and have repeatedly accused others of being negative or toxic instead?

 

[Oofta]

Chris Cocks is a CEO of a large corporation, but he's also a human being worthy of the same respect and courtesy we all are.

Did he attack you or your business personally last year? Or make decisions through Hasbro that were not friendly to the publisher and fan community? Either way, if you aren't happy with him and his decisions affecting D&D, that's understandable.

But there is so much negativity in the fan community right now, that attacking him, calling him a liar . . . even if we're just "making fun" . . . over his claim that he games with 30-40 folks and they all use AI in their D&D games . . . is just unnecessary. It's a reasonable claim that simply doesn't warrant folks nitpicking it to death.

Disagreeing with him that his anecdotal experience should be cause for WotC to incorporate AI into D&D . . . that's pretty reasonable. I'm with you on that part!

You are, of course, free to hold and express any opinion on Cocks that you like. You don't have to listen to me, I'm not your mom! I just find it frustrating and disappointing that a creator and important voice in our community is giving in to the negativity.

The problem is not that Mr. Cocks would be upset, it's that if someone makes unfounded accusations, I think less of the person making the accusation. If they turn around and say "I was just kidding", my opinion goes down another notch. The "I wasn't serious" is used far too frequently as dismissing the opinion of people who raised the issue.

 

[Dire Bare]

The problem is not that Mr. Cocks would be upset, it's that if someone makes unfounded accusations, I think less of the person making the accusation. If they turn around and say "I was just kidding", my opinion goes down another notch. The "I wasn't serious" is used far too frequently as dismissing the opinion of people who raised the issue.

Yeah.

I'm sure all the fan chatter, positive, negative, toxic, or indifferent isn't likely registering with Cocks. The negativity brings down fan discourse, makes these threads less pleasant to participate in, and colors my choices of where I spend my hobby time.

Our mainstream media and society is devolving into polarization, incessant negativity, and toxicity . . . it's frustrating to see it rise in the D&D fan community as well, although perhaps it shouldn't be surprising.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.

A super intelligent AI is actually the least likely possibility seeing as generative AI is very, very dumb and in no way can think for itself.

No, the real issues is their being by-design set up to eliminate human jobs, the horrendous toll they take on the environment to power, the glut of AI sludge content now filling the internet, their use in misinformation campaigns, the self-admitted need to steal content to train them, and the fact that these garbage generative AIs are poisoning the well against useful AI applications that do deserve to exist.

 

[Velderan]

Disagreeing with him that his anecdotal experience should be cause for WotC to incorporate AI into D&D . . . that's pretty reasonable. I'm with you on that part!

Which to me is where the pushback on what he's saying should be. Who cares how many people he plays D&D with, you could replace the statement with "I talked to 30 random people in a FLGS and they said..." and it would be just as flawed of a source of data. 30 people is absolutely nothing when they just finished telling us they have 18 million DDB registered users. Run some surveys on those users to get a feel for what the community is actually doing and wanting to see WotC do.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's a reasonable claim

It's really not especially not as it was deployed int he form of an appeal to popularity.

This wasn't him just off the cuff saying something about his play group, he was saying the huge number of players he interacts with 'all' use AI to justify the AI.

He made a crumby sales pitch; that's why he's being lampooned.

 

[Scribe]

Why was this even bumped.

 

[KYRON45]

I work in Corporate America, and I have known many high level mangers that play in 4-6 fantasy sports league a year. With 10-12 people per league I see no reason to assume he is lying about how many people he plays with.

Do fantasy sports leagues people actually do anything though? Don't they just pick their players and then wait to see what happens next week?
I don't know a hockey ball from a baseball racket...i'm really asking.