Some Hasbro brands have come under fire in the past for making use of AI, namely Dungeons & Dragons art was heavily critiqued for making use of the technology back in its earlier days. Now, as AI seems more integrated into our daily lives, it seems like there are companies using it, and those shirking it. Hasbro apparently falls into the latter category these days, even if its CEO remains a fan of the tech.
Speaking with TheVerge, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said that he uses AI "all the time for just personal passion projects." Specifically, he brings "AI-based animation, images, text, sound effects, and voice cloning," to his D&D tables while he's DMing. Each to their own, I suppose, and it seems Cocks understands that aspect of AI usage as well, and doesn't want it forced into Hasbro's video games or its tabletop experiences.
"From a creative context, I think you have to think about [AI] very carefully," Cocks explained. "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, in the toy space, Cocks says Hasbro has found quite the usage case for AI in concepting.
"Yeah, you might generate 1,000 ideas and 999 of them aren't that good, but one of them might be magical, and it's basically free to be able to create it.," he said.