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
larval_tapeworm is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
star_tabloid is a newspaper	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
christia_bean is a legume	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
colored_rectangles is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
mediterranean_tarantula is an arachnid	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0

kboo is a radio station in the city portland	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
presidents_kennedy_and_johnson is a U.S. politician who holds the office of secretary	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
great_ormond_street is a hospital in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
air_pacific is a company that has an office in the city los_angeles_ca	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
salmon is a fish that can be served with the food green_salad in a meal (or dish)	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8

Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Recently-Learned Facts