Nikon has disqualified the winner of its Small World in Motion competition, Ning Xu of Tsinghua University, after allegations surfaced regarding the use of AI in his video entry. The video captured cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. Nikon launched an investigation and concluded that Xu’s entry did not comply with competition rules.
The new winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam, whose video features a tiny roundworm and a single-celled organism. Some researchers expressed concern over structural abnormalities and the appearance and disappearance of cell features, as well as AI watermarks in the source files. Xu admitted using AI to distinguish and visualize features but denied using it to generate the experimental movie, cilia, or their motion.
The Nikon Small World in Motion competition, founded in 2011, is a spinoff of the Small World Photomicrography Competition, which has been held since 1974. Both aim to showcase the beauty and complexity of microscopic subjects through still photographs and photovideography. Other winners moved up in rank: Benedikt Pleyer of Bavaria, Germany, placed second; Andrew Moore of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US, third; Patrick Hickey of Hypha Research Ltd. in Edinburgh, Scotland, fourth; and Igor Adameyko, fifth with a video of a colorful sea slug.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing