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
vainqueurs_d__tapes_du_tour_de_picardie is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ataxophragmiidae is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
popover_pans is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
jesse_crain is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kraft_card_stock is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	99.9

japanese_language is a language taught in language schools in the city tokyo	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
kolo is a TV station in the city reno	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
red_wings is an organization also known as pittsburgh_penguins	1113	15-aug-2018	99.9
spain is a country located in the geopolitical location foreign_countries	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
hotel_dieu is a hospital in the city kingston	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8

Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Recently-Learned Facts