We can make some educated guesses about Hasbro's AI plans thanks to a recent interview with CEO Chris Cocks.
Not surprisingly, Large Language Model (LLM) Artifical Intelligence (AI) is on every business' plans, and Hasbro is no different. The question is how the company plans to use it ethically in light of several missteps in which Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro division overseeing Dungeons & Dragons, failed to disclose that AI was involved in certain pieces of art. The ongoing controversies were enough to make WOTC update its AI policy.
So it's possible WOTC may not use OGL content at all to train its AI. They don't need it -- there's plenty of content the company can leverage from its own vaults:
But Cocks is thinking bigger than that for Dungeons & Dragons. He explains how he uses AI with D&D specifically:
Add all this up, and companies like Hasbro are all looking at the archives of information -- be it text, graphics, or examples of play -- as a competitive advantage to train their AIs in a way their rivals can't.
We can't know for sure what WOTC or Hasbro has planned. But Cocks makes it clear AI is part of Hasbro’s future:
Not surprisingly, Large Language Model (LLM) Artifical Intelligence (AI) is on every business' plans, and Hasbro is no different. The question is how the company plans to use it ethically in light of several missteps in which Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro division overseeing Dungeons & Dragons, failed to disclose that AI was involved in certain pieces of art. The ongoing controversies were enough to make WOTC update its AI policy.
An AI Product Every Two to Three Months
That hasn't stopped former CEO of WOTC and current CEO of Hasbro Chris Cocks from expounding on his plans for AI:What Cocks is talking about is how LLM AIs are sourced. The LLM controversies revolve around, among other things, that the AIs are trained on content without the owners' permission. In other words, although LLMs are often trained on publicly available content, the users sharing that content never imagined a robot would be hoovering up their dialogue to create money for someone else. The throughline to art is a bit easier to detect (as the above controversies show, harder to prove); but when it comes to text, like Reddit, user-generated content is invaluable. These AI are only as valuable as the content they have at their disposal to train on. This is why Poe.com and other customizable AI, trained on your own content, can be so useful to Dungeon Masters who want a true assistant that can sort through decades of homebrew content in seconds. I'll discuss using Poe.com in a future article.
Respecting Creators, Works of Art, and Ownership
Cocks is keenly aware of AI's controversies, with the Open Game License and issues with AI-generated art:And now we come to it. So how would WOTC and Hasbro use AI that respects creators, their work, ownership and is fun to use?
How Might WOTC Use AI for D&D?
Cocks give us some hints in his answers:The Open Game License (OGL), by its very nature, is meant to be used in much the same way LLMs try to use the entirety of the Internet. What was likely a thorn in the side of lawyers may well seem like an opportunity now. Unlike the Internet though, the OGL has a framework for sharing -- even if it wasn't envisioned by the creators as sharing with a machine. More to the point, everyone using the Open Game License is potentially adding to LLM content; databases of OGL content in wiki format are just more fodder for LLMs to learn. WOTC could certainly leverage that content to train an AI on Dungeons & Dragons just as much as anyone else if they so chose; however, a large company using OGL content to fuel their AI doesn't seem like it's respecting their creators and their ownership.
So it's possible WOTC may not use OGL content at all to train its AI. They don't need it -- there's plenty of content the company can leverage from its own vaults:
The specific reference to 35 years of Magic: the Gathering content "that we can leverage" has been done before by WOTC's predecessor, when TSR created the Spellfire card game. TSR churned out Spellfire in response to Magic: The Gathering (before WOTC took over D&D). It relied heavily on (at the time) TSR's 20 years of art archives. One can easily imagine AI generating this type of game with art WOTC owns in a very short period of time.
But Cocks is thinking bigger than that for Dungeons & Dragons. He explains how he uses AI with D&D specifically:
In the future, WOTC could easily change their contracts to explicitly state that any art they commission may be used to train a future AI (if they don't already). For content they already own -- and WOTC owns decades of art created for Magic: The Gathering -- they may already be within their rights to do this.
Add all this up, and companies like Hasbro are all looking at the archives of information -- be it text, graphics, or examples of play -- as a competitive advantage to train their AIs in a way their rivals can't.
The Inevitable
In short, it's not a question if WOTC and Hasbro are going to use AI, just when. And by all indications, that future will involve databases of content that are either clearly open source or owned by Hasbro, with LLMs that will then do the heavy lifting on the creative side of gaming that was once filled by other gamers. For Dungeons & Dragons in particular, the challenge in getting a game started has always been finding a Dungeon Master, a tough role for any gamer to fill, and the lynchpin of every successful D&D campaign. With D&D Beyond now firmly in WOTC's grasp, they could easily provide an AI platform on that service, using the data it learns from thousands of players there to refine its algorithms and teach it to be a better DM. Give it enough time, and it may well be an a resource for players who want a DM but can't find one.We can't know for sure what WOTC or Hasbro has planned. But Cocks makes it clear AI is part of Hasbro’s future:
In three to five years, we might have officially sanctioned AI Dungeon Masters. Doesn't seem realistic? Unofficial versions are already here.
