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
n1972_world_championship_victory_race is a sporting event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
inoculated_plates is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
black_molds is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
adams_respiratory_therapeutics_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n9_7_victory is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9

black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with steak	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
eve is the mother of yahweh	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
the country south_korea uses the currency won	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
fiesta_rancho_station is a building located in the city las_vegas	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
sbc001 has acquired ameritech	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9

Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Recently-Learned Facts