清华Ning Xu因AI使用被取消Nikon Small World in Motion资格，越南Nguyen Nam Nhat递补夺冠
AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner
Nikon调查认定原Small World in Motion视频竞赛冠军、清华大学Ning Xu的作品不符合规则并取消其资格，越南Nguyen Nam Nhat以线虫与单细胞生物视频递补冠军，其余名次依次上移。研究者指出该视频存在结构异常和不符合真实细胞生物学的特征变化，源文件中疑似嵌入AI水印；Xu称仅用AI区分和可视化重建灰度图像中的特征，否认用AI生成实验影片、纤毛及其运动。
Credit: Nguyen Nam Nhat.
Last month we covered the winner of Nikon's Small World in Motion video: Ning Xu of Tsinghua University in China, whose video captured tiny cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. But allegations surfaced about Xu's use of AI while making the video. 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 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. Xu said he used AI “to distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images”; however, he denied that AI was used "to generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion.”
Founded in 2011, the Nikon Small World in Motion competition is a spinoff of the company’s Small World Photomicrography Competition, which has been around since 1974. Both are meant “to showcase the beauty and complexity of things seen through the light microscope”—one through still photographs, the other through photovideography, taking advantage of all the technological advances that now allow users to make movies or time-lapse images through the microscope.
The other winners also moved up a notch with Xu's disqualification. Benedikt Pleyer of Bavaria, Germany, placed second with a video of jellyfish larvae suspended in water droplets; Andrew Moore of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US placed third with a video of synchronized cell division in neighboring cells; Patrick Hickey of Hypha Research Ltd. in Edinburgh, Scotland, placed fourth with a video of the dynamics of mitochondria and chloroplasts in Turtle Vine leaf cells; and Igor Adameyko placed fifth with a video of a tiny, colorful sea slug (Cyerce kikutarobabai) on the move.
来源：Ars Technica：AI · arstechnica.com