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
spinal_disc_herniation is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
tea__oolong_tea is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
battle_of_johnstown is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
summer_session_students is a victim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jackie_goodwin is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
lake_blue_ridge is a lake in the state or province georgia	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
melbourne___commuter_rail is a transportation system located in the city melbourne	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
hockey is a sport played in the venue jobing_com_arena	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
27 was the winning score in super_bowl_xvii	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
narita is an attraction that will be fall in city tokyo	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0