Nikon Small World in Motion winner faces backlash over claims the video looks AI-made

[Drogba]

There is a row brewing in the science photography world. The winning entry in Nikon's Small World in Motion competition, which celebrates videos taken through microscopes, has been criticised by scientists who believe it may contain artificial elements. The video, by Dr Ning Xu of Tsinghua University, shows the tiny hair-like structures called cilia moving inside the airways of a child with a rare disease. It is the kind of image that normally wins praise for revealing hidden biology

Several scientists have raised concerns. They say structures appear and disappear in ways that do not match real biology, the cilia look larger than they should, and there are what look like suspicious watermarks that might suggest AI generation. Researcher Edward Phelps said structures seem to pop in and out of existence and cilia appear from nowhere. Dr Patrick Hickey pointed out that the competition rules explicitly ban generative AI and require images to be authentic microscope captures. Some of the criticism has been fairly pointed

Dr Xu has denied that AI was used to generate the video, the cilia or their movement. He did say AI was used for distinguishing and visualising features, which is common in scientific image processing. Nikon said that, at this time, it does not see that any rules were broken, and that Xu is cooperating with its investigation. The company has promised an update soon

This shows how blurry the line has become. Scientists use AI tools all the time to clean up noise, sharpen detail and highlight structures in microscope images. That is different from generating content that was never there, but from the outside the two can look similar. Competitions now have to work out where enhancement ends and fabrication begins. Even experts can struggle to tell the difference on a phone screen. That makes public debates messy

I do not want to prejudge the investigation, and it is entirely possible the video is authentic with heavy processing. But the doubts alone show how much trust has been eroded by AI images. Where should the line be for science imagery? And should competitions require the raw footage alongside entries?

Tiny image sparks big backlash in Nikon photo contestwww.bbc.co.uk