如今，高管们花太多时间担心AI可能摧毁哪些业务，以至于我们可能忽略了它将创造的新业务。孩之宝就有一个例子：由已故的唐·里克斯配音的蛋头先生，来接听你的客服电话。
Executives spend so much time these days worrying about the businesses AI might destroy that we can overlook the new businesses it will create. Here’s one from Hasbro: Mr. Potato Head, voiced by the late Don Rickles, answering your customer-service calls.
这家玩具和游戏巨头正在建立一项业务，授权其标志性角色的AI版本。首席执行官克里斯·科克斯在Semafor的活动中表示。孩之宝于6月推出了第六墙AI工作室，以挖掘其166年的知识产权历史。科克斯说，公司正在与一家大型手机运营商谈判，希望用AI生成的勒瓦尔·伯顿配音的《问答游戏》问答节目，取代客服等待音乐。
The toy and game giant is building a business to license AI versions of its iconic characters, CEO Chris Cocks said on Semafor’s . Hasbro launched its Sixth Wall AI studio in June to mine its 166-year history of IP. Cocks said the company is negotiating with a major cellphone carrier to have a Trivial Pursuit quiz show, voiced by an AI-generated LeVar Burton, replace customer-support hold music.
“我们将充当这些角色行为的经纪人和创意总监，”科克斯说。“然后由另一个平台来呈现它。”（莉兹希望Alexa能有个威震天选项；科克斯指出，这个《变形金刚》角色已经在孩之宝罗德岛总部担任AI驱动的、偶尔爱评判的DJ。）科克斯将AI工具的激增比作互联网早期，当时知识产权持有者在用户生成内容的文化战中处于劣势。
“We’ll serve as the kind of talent agents and creative directors for what the characters do,” Cocks said. “Then it’s up to another platform to express it.” (Liz wants a Megatron option for Alexa; Cocks noted the “Transformers” character is already serving as the AI-powered, and occasionally judgmental, deejay at Hasbro’s Rhode Island headquarters.) Cocks compared the proliferation of AI tools to the early days of the internet, when IP rightsholders found themselves on the losing end of a cultural battle over user-generated content.
“与其试图对抗一项真正强大且创新的新技术的传播，我们选择拥抱它，”他说。“这对我们来说是一个赚钱的机会，对我们的合作伙伴来说也是一个赚钱的机会，然后这些人们喜爱的角色背后的配音人才和创意人员也能在经济上参与其中。”
“Rather than trying to fight the dispersion of a really powerful and innovative new technology, we’re choosing to embrace it,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for us to make a bit of money, our partners to make a bit of money, and then the voice talent and creatives behind these characters that people love to also be able to participate economically.”
科克斯迅速指出，护栏是关键：蛋头先生的声音将基于《玩具总动员》演员兼侮辱喜剧演员的遗产录音，“不会表达蛋头先生不应该发表意见的某些事情。”——莉兹·霍夫曼和罗汉·戈斯瓦米
Guardrails, Cocks is quick to point out, are key: Mr. Potato Head, whose voice will be based on recordings from the Toy Story actor and insult comic’s estate, “won’t express certain things that Mr. Potato Head shouldn’t be offering an opinion on.”— Liz Hoffman and Rohan Goswami