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After a series of AI scandals at the gaming company Wizards of the Coast, the CEO of its parent company Hasbro has made a sweeping revelation.
During a talk at a Goldman Sachs conference, Hasbro honcho Chris Cocks admitted that the entertainment conglomerate not only plans to build bespoke AI systems in the future, but that it's already begun using it in development of games including "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Magic: The Gathering."
"Inside of development, we've already been using AI," Cocks said in response to a question about AI's potential to bring down production costs during the financial firm's annual Communacopia tech conference. "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."
While the logistical aspects of the technology seem fairly par for the course in the world of out-of-touch CEOs over-relying on it, Cocks then suggested that it will become a part of D&D gameplay.
"I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI," he said. "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."
After paying lip service to using AI "responsibly" and "paying creators for their work," Cocks then doubled down on his point.
"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," the Hasbro CEO said.
These comments, as the Bell of Lost Souls gaming blog notes, come not only amid the generative AI bubble that's so enraptured CEOs across the economy, but also amid massive scandal for Hasbro's subsidiary Wizards of the Coast,
Less than a month after outright banning its artists from AI at the end of 2023, WOTC admitted at the beginning of this year that despite its staunch rule, the company itself had used generative AI to create an ad for "Magic."
Later, the company issued an FAQ about its anti-AI policy in the aftermath of that debacle, asking fans to bear with the people who run the company while they essentially separate the wheat from the AI chaff.
"Human beings are fallible, whether it is a conglomerate of human beings (like a company) or a single human being (like an artist)," the FAQ reads.
"We have been consistent in our position [against AI]... and we want our community to know that we are working to ensure they can see us deliberating on how best to meet that commitment, even if we all occasionally stumble along the way."
From issuing a statement that contradicts its own marketing copy to having its big boss endorse the sweeping use of AI, Hasbro clearly has some miscommunications going on — and while the company figures it it all out, its fans will no doubt keep ripping on the company.
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