Nikon disqualifies microscopy video contest winner over generative AI rule breach

Nikon said it has stripped the original first-place entry in its Small World in Motion microscopy video competition after finding that the work violated the contest’s rules on generative AI. The video was submitted by Dr. Ning Xu and was described as showing the movement of cilia in the airway of a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia, or PCD. Nikon said last week that it reviewed the video after questions about its authenticity surfaced online. Dr. Xu later acknowledged on LinkedIn that AI had been used in post-processing, saying an unsupervised neural network method was applied to help distinguish and visualize the cilia. The item was cited by Techub News, with The Verge AI named as the source.