A new nanoscience paper describes an exciting new material that closely resembles a much-loved puffed corn snack. A scatter of twisted tubes, dubbed nano-cheetos, are shown in a clear electron microscopy image. The only problem: the material isn’t real. The image was made with ChatGPT, by a team of materials scientists who warn that such AI-generated images could make scientific fraud near-undetectable.

Quinn Besford from the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Germany, Matthew Faria, from the University of Melbourne, Australia and their teams surveyed 250 scientists, asking them to distinguish real from AI-generated microscopy images. The responses confirmed that this was essentially impossible, even for experts.

They suggest that publications should always include raw files, those created by the instrument. There should also be less pressure from journals and reviewers to create "perfect" images.

Source https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/fake-microscopy-images-generated-by-ai-are-indistinguishable-from-the-real-thing/4022215.article

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