Read the Web :: Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Can computers learn to read? We think so. "Read the Web" is a research project that attempts to create a computer system that learns over time to read the web. Since January 2010, our computer system called NELL (Never-Ending Language Learner) has been running continuously, attempting to perform two tasks each day:

First, it attempts to "read," or extract facts from text found in hundreds of millions of web pages (e.g., playsInstrument(George_Harrison, guitar)).
Second, it attempts to improve its reading competence, so that tomorrow it can extract more facts from the web, more accurately.

So far, NELL has accumulated over 50 million candidate beliefs by reading the web, and it is considering these at different levels of confidence. NELL has high confidence in 2,810,379 of these beliefs — these are displayed on this website. It is not perfect, but NELL is learning. You can track NELL's progress below or @cmunell on Twitter, browse and download its knowledge base, read more about our technical approach, or join the discussion group.

instance	iteration	date learned	confidence
friskiness is a physical characteristic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
questions_product_questions is a cognitive action	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
iclv is a conference	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
n57_90 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
port_of_limay_porcheville is a transportation port	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0

belle_haven is a city located in the state or province virginia	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
bernie_mac001 is a person who died at the age of 50	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lucas_oil_stadium is a stadium or event venue located in the city indianapolis	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
weapons is a type of weapon produced in yugoslav_federation	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
william has brother michael	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8

Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Recently-Learned Facts