AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner

What happened

Nikon launched an investigation and concluded that Xu's entry did not comply with competition rules. New winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam for video of a roundworm and single-celled Dileptus.

But allegations surfaced about Xu's use of AI while making the video. The new winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam with a video of a tiny roundworm and a single-celled organism (above).

According to a BBC report, some researchers expressed concern that Xu's video had structural abnormalities and that cell features appeared and disappeared in a way one would not see in actual cellular biology. Others spotted what looked like AI watermarks embedded within the source files.