Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Browse the Knowledge Base!

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.

Recently-Learned Facts

instance	iteration	date learned	confidence
used_tractors_farm is a farm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
video_slots is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
laundry_workers is a trade union	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4
communist_party_of_ukraine is a political party	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n7_24 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
opioids is a drug that might treat pain	1112	24-jul-2018	99.7
hugh001 has citizenship in the country cyprus	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
president_obama and michelle_obama are family members	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
ford is a company that produces granada	1114	25-aug-2018	99.6
howard_schultz works for starbucks	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0