Nikon disqualifies its Small World video winner over AI

Nikon disqualified the first-place winner of its 2026 Small World in Motion competition on October 9, ruling that the video did not meet the contest's rules on generative AI.

Nikon said it reached the decision "after thoroughly re-evaluating the video and supporting materials and consulting with members of our judging panel," and that it had "adjusted the competition rankings on our website to reflect this decision." In the statement, which Ars Technica published in full, the company added that the ruling "is based solely on the submitted video's eligibility under the rules outlined for this competition. It should not be interpreted as a judgment of the entrant's professional reputation, scientific contributions, or intent."

The disqualified entry was Dr Ning Xu's video of cilia, the hair-like structures that line part of the airway, moving in a child with the rare genetic condition primary ciliary dyskinesia. The contest announced it as the winner in September 2026. Vietnam's Nguyen Nam Nhat now holds first place, with a video of a roundworm and a single-celled organism called Dileptus, and Xu's clip no longer appears on the contest's winners page.

Small World in Motion began in 2011 as a video spinoff of Nikon's Small World Photomicrography Competition, which the company says started in 1975. Its rules state that AI-generated videos are not permitted, according to PetaPixel.

The ruling followed weeks of scrutiny from researchers. The BBC reports that some saw structural abnormalities in the footage, with cell features appearing and disappearing in ways cellular biology does not produce, and that others found what looked like AI watermarks embedded in the source files. Xu acknowledged using AI to "distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images" but denied that AI generated "the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion." He did not respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo, the outlet reports.

SLOP TV covered Nikon's re-review of the entry on October 2, before the company gave its verdict.

Nikon said the episode showed the need for the competition to "revisit rules and evaluation procedures for future competition entries." For scientists and creators who enter AI-adjacent contests, the case is an early test of how fast a generative AI rule can be enforced after a prize has already been handed out. Nikon's own talk of stronger evaluation procedures suggests the next contest will ask more of entrants.

The updated Small World in Motion rankings are online at nikonsmallworld.com.