Nikon disqualifies the winner of its 2026 Small World in Motion microscopy video contest for breaking its generative-AI rules

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Key facts

• Nikon statement (Oct 9, 2026): ‘After thoroughly re-evaluating the video and supporting materials and consulting with members of our judging panel, Nikon has determined that the winning video did not comply with the competition rules regarding generative AI. Nikon has adjusted the competition rankings to reflect this decision.’
• The video, announced as the winner in September, claimed to show abnormal cilia beating in the airway of a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD)
• Doubts (PetaPixel, Gizmodo, TechRadar, around Oct 1): Edward Phelps (University of Florida bioengineering researcher, on LinkedIn) said ‘purple structures pop in and out of existence’ and green cilia ‘appear from nowhere and do not match the known size’; UT Southwestern MD/PhD student Ian Donovan ran it through Google Gemini, which reported a SynthID watermark indicating at least part was AI-generated
• Gizmodo: Phelps said a sub-epithelial structure of extracellular mitochondria the size of cell nuclei ‘does not occur in biology’; the SynthID finding was first reported by CNN
• Xu said AI was not used to generate the movie, the cilia or their motion, but admitted (LinkedIn) that ‘an unsupervised neural-network method was subsequently used for AI-assisted post-processing to distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images’
• Outcome (The Verge, citing the BBC): Xu’s video was removed from Nikon’s site; Nguyen Nam Nhat’s video now ranks first; Nikon will ‘revisit rules and evaluation procedures for future competition entries’ and says the decision ‘should not be interpreted as a judgment of the entrant’s professional reputation, scientific contributions, or intent’