Nikon disqualifies its Small World in Motion winner after finding generative AI in the video

Nikon has disqualified the winner of its Small World in Motion microscope-video competition after concluding that generative AI was used in the entry, which the rules do not allow.

“This controversy has impacted a lot of patients, scientists, doctors and PCD support networks around the world”

Dr Robert Hirst, University of Leicester, lead scientist for the NHS centre for PCD diagnosis, to the BBC · bbc.co.uk ↗

The decision came days after the result was announced, once scientists, some of them former judges, questioned the clip on LinkedIn. Nikon says it re-examined the video and supporting material and consulted judges first, and that the ruling is not a judgement on the entrant's reputation or scientific work.

The entry was by Dr Ning Xu of Tsinghua University in China and showed cilia in the airway of a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare disease. It was described as magnified 100 times, using coloured light to show parts of the sample.

Xu has acknowledged using AI but says he believed he was within the rules, and he cooperated with the investigation. Vietnamese researcher Nguyen Nam Nhat, who came second with a roundworm meeting a single-celled Dileptus, is now the winner of the US$3,000 first prize.

Critics were blunt. A University of Florida researcher said the nuclei did not behave as nuclei and the cilia appeared from nowhere. An open letter from the microscopy community asked for the winners' work to be examined externally and for Nikon to enforce its rules, warning of a misleading portrayal of a poorly understood disease. Nikon's LinkedIn post that drew the complaints has been deleted, and it says it will review the contest's rules and procedures.