Hasbro CEO says AI will be at the core of Dungeons & Dragons

After a series of AI scandals at gaming company Wizards of the Coast, the CEO of parent company Hasbro made a shocking revelation. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference, Hasbro CEO Chris Cox admitted that the entertainment conglomerate not only plans to build bespoke AI systems in the future, but has already started using AI in the development of games like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. “We’re already using AI in the development space,” Cox said when asked at the financial company’s annual technology conference, Communacopia, about the potential for AI to lower production costs. “This is primarily machine learning-based AI or proprietary AI, as opposed to the ChatGPT approach. We deploy this at scale and at will, internally, both as an adjunct to knowledge workers and as an adjunct to development.” While the logistical aspects of the technology seem like a given in a world of ethereal CEOs who rely too heavily on it, Cox then hinted that it will be part of D&D gameplay. “But I’m more excited about the playful element of AI,” he said. “I play with 30 or 40 people on a regular basis, and there’s not one of them who isn’t using AI in some way for campaign development or character development or story ideas. That’s a clear signal that we need to embrace AI.” After paying lip service to using AI “responsibly” and “paying creators for their work,” Cox doubled down on his claim. “I think the themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player onboarding, using AI to enable emergent storytelling, you’ll see that across multiple brands, not just hardcore brands like D&D,” the Hasbro CEO said. As gaming blog Bell of Lost Souls points out, these comments come not just in the midst of a generative AI bubble that’s captivating CEOs across the economy, but also in the midst of a major scandal at Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Less than a month after completely banning artists from using AI at the end of 2023, WOTC announced that earlier this year, the company itself had used generative AI to create ads for “Magic” despite its strict rules. Then, in the aftermath of that fiasco, the company released an FAQ about its anti-AI policy, asking fans to be patient while the people who run the company essentially sort out what’s good and bad about AI. “Humans make mistakes, whether they’re a group of people (such as a company) or a single person (such as an artist),” the FAQ reads. “We’ve been consistent in our position (against AI), and we want our community to know that we’re thinking about how best to deliver on that promise, even if we stumble along the way.” Hasbro has clearly had some miscommunication issues, from issuing statements that contradict its own marketing copy to having its president approve the full use of AI. And while the company is working it all out, fans will no doubt continue to bait the company. More on AI in games: NVIDIA CEO says video games will be filled entirely with AI