Wizards of the Coast is hiring a senior AI engineer for customer-facing features

Hot off the heels of Hasbro announcing a new AI studio, WotC--the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons--is advertising a vacancy on LinkedIn for a senior AI engineer.

The advertisement talks about customer facing features, AI tech in products, and systems for player assistance, tutorials, and NPC behaviours.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has talked frequently about the use of AI in Hasbro's workflows as a whole, lauding AI integration as a "clear success", and describing himself as an "AI Bull". WotC has always maintained that its two main products, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering, would not use the technology, and has previously removed artwork from products when it has transpired that they were created with AI tools. The publisher's most recent statement on AI said "For 50 years, D&D has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn't changing. Our internal guidelines remain the same with regards to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes D&D great." Chris Cocks himself said earlier this year that 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."

However, this job advertisement is clearly posted by WotC specifically, and talks about customer facing features and NPC behaviours. While that doesn't necessarily point to AI-created D&D books or artwork, it does strongly imply that AI-powered tools might be appearing in customer-facing locations such as D&D Beyond, rather than just behind-the-scenes project management and workflow processes.

Emphasis highlights by Faith Elisabeth Lilley
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[Sulicius]

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Hot off the heels of Hasbro announcing a new AI studio, WotC--the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons--is advertising a vacancy on LinkedIn for a senior AI engineer.

The advertisement talks about customer facing features, AI tech in products, and systems for player assistance, tutorials, and NPC behaviours.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has talked frequently about the use of AI in Hasbro's workflows as a whole, lauding AI integration as a "clear success", and describing himself as an "AI Bull". WotC has always maintained that its two main products, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering, would not use the technology, and has previously removed artwork from products when it has transpired that they were created with AI tools. The publisher's most recent statement on AI said "For 50 years, D&D has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn't changing. Our internal guidelines remain the same with regards to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes D&D great." Chris Cocks himself said earlier this year that 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."

However, this job advertisement is clearly posted by WotC specifically, and talks about customer facing features and NPC behaviours. While that doesn't necessarily point to AI-created D&D books or artwork, it does strongly imply that AI-powered tools might be appearing in customer-facing locations such as D&D Beyond, rather than just behind-the-scenes project management and workflow processes.

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Emphasis highlights by Faith Elisabeth Lilley​

Can anyone confirm the job advertisement’s been taken down? If yes, what could it mean?

 

[MichaelSomething]

So, sure, an artist's words on the matter are important. But they aren't the be-all and end-all of the matter. And it is possible for others to see things in your words, deeds, and creations that you did not. That doesn't mean they're right, but we have to at least acknowledge the possibility that they might be.

That happens to my posting all the freakin' time. It is the price that an artist of my caliber must pay to express themselves.

 

[Clint_L]

With regards to using generative AI as a DM:

I've experimented quite a lot with this, using different publicly available AIs. There are some compelling things the AI can do, but there are limitations that, thus far, have been systemic and might not be solvable with how generative AI works.

The good: the AI can improvise quickly in reaction to player prompts, even when those prompts are just framed as RP choices, dice rolls, etc.

The bad: the AI always tends towards stereotypes and predictability.

The systemic, possibly insurmountable problem: Generative AI is not sentient and cannot say "no" - it is always iterating and trying to give the user what its algorithms predict the user wants. A DM has to be able to say "no," or else the story inevitably devolves into predictable little vignettes with no real purpose or meaning.

I'm reading Adrian Tchaichovsky's latest book, which starts with one of the protagonists stuck in an AI-generated world, and she is experiencing exactly this problem: nothing means anything, because the universe is always bending to her will.

I think, for an AI GM to work, it would have to be designed with hard limitations. It cannot do this on its own. Believe me, I have tried.

 

[Blue]

The prompt is not the product.

I can poetically ask someone to mow the lawn, that doesn't mean I did any yard work.

I can click the button on my camera too, doesn't mean it's art.

But that's not the camera's fault as a tool if I heedlessly click a picture or if Ansel Adams considers composition, waits for the right lighting, uses his knowledge to pick lenses, exposure time, appature, and a bunch of things I don't know enough about photography to use.

You or I can crack ice off a sidewalk, but ice can also be sculpted. It's not the tool that does it, because in my hand it that tool wouldn't make a beautiful sculpture. it's the skill and vision with which it is wielded.

Same if you handed me a paintbrush and a palette of watercolors. I wouldn't produce art, but that has to do with the input.

So, instead of some rhetoric with a lawnmower that is rarely, if ever, used to create art, I invite you to consider if the skill and vision of the creator in important in the output of the tool.

Because that's what I was asking him.

 

[timbannock]

Can anyone confirm the job advertisement’s been taken down? If yes, what could it mean?

These days, many listings get hundreds or even thousands of applicants every hour. They may have simply hit some quota and shut it down so they can go through a manageable number of applicants.

And root out or at least interrupt the bots that apply,

 

[BookTenTiger]

I can click the button on my camera too, doesn't mean it's art.

But that's not the camera's fault as a tool if I heedlessly click a picture or if Ansel Adams considers composition, waits for the right lighting, uses his knowledge to pick lenses, exposure time, appature, and a bunch of things I don't know enough about photography to use.

You or I can crack ice off a sidewalk, but ice can also be sculpted. It's not the tool that does it, because in my hand it that tool wouldn't make a beautiful sculpture. it's the skill and vision with which it is wielded.

Same if you handed me a paintbrush and a palette of watercolors. I wouldn't produce art, but that has to do with the input.

So, instead of some rhetoric with a lawnmower that is rarely, if ever, used to create art, I invite you to consider if the skill and vision of the creator in important in the output of the tool.

Because that's what I was asking him.

Art has no easy definition. Marcel Duchamp writes R. Mutt on a urinal and puts that in a gallery. Is it art? Someone else duct tapes a banana peel to the wall. Is that art? A primitive human puts their hand against a the wall of a cave and breathes pigment over it, leaving an outline. Is that art? A bowerbird collects a dozen blue objects to impress a potential mate. Is that art?

Art is constantly evolving. When Jackson Pollock made his abstract splatter paintings, his movements as he flung paint at the canvas was part of his art. I've read about concept artists who create a pop-up restaurant as an art project. Someone spends their life creating still life oil paintings but never shows another person. Did they create art?

So the question isn't "is an AI prompt art?" or "is an AI image art?" It's "what's the purpose of creating it?" Sure, you can have AI create the exact image of a sunset that's in your mind. You can also go out and photograph a sunset. You can paint it. You can do an interpretive dance showing what a sunset means to you. You can write a dirty limerick about a sunset looking like a body part. You can write an 800 page novel that no one reads about someone watching the sun set.

If you showed me an AI image of a sunset, I might admire its colors, its composition. I might say it's a great looking piece of art.

But what's the point of it?

I think it's absolutely possible to create art with AI. But I think a lot of people who think they're creating art aren't actually going through a creative process. They're just getting a product.

And, in my own opinion, it's really the process that creates art, not just the product.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm reading Adrian Tchaichovsky's latest book, which starts with one of the protagonists stuck in an AI-generated world, and she is experiencing exactly this problem: nothing means anything, because the universe is always bending to her will.

Which book is this?

 

[Benji]

Full 3D virtual worlds AI generated and run RPGs are inevitable.

To those that want that, fine. But I play these games becuase I want interaction with people and their creative selves. So I don't think it is inevitable for everyone.

 

[AlViking]

To those that want that, fine. But I play these games becuase I want interaction with people and their creative selves. So I don't think it is inevitable for everyone.

Even if I were to use a DM assistant to help me plan for games, I'd still want to play in person.

However for some one-offs here and there? For convention or public games, maybe even online games? I can see the appeal. I'm just not convinced it's going to happen in the foreseeable future.

 

[Clint_L]

Which book is this?

Children of Strife - book four in his amazing Children of Time series. It just came out.

It explores AI in different ways, as well as the extent to which minds can be replicated, digitally or otherwise.