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
centromedian_parafascicular_nuclear_complex is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
paul_s__weitz is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
fresno_chaffee_zool_gardens is a zoo	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
thomas_bell is an author in the scientific field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
quiz_capcom_world_2 is software	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
venice_marco_polo_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
craig_smith is a journalist that writes for the publication times	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
spanish_language is a language taught in language schools in the city palma_mallorca	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
wilhelm has citizenship in the country prussia	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
ricky_jean_francois plays the athletic team position player	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0