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
john_whyte is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
construction_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
soccer_soccer is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
deep_layer_of_superior_colliculus is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
fair_elections is an election	1111	06-jul-2018	98.0
mccarran is a building located in the city las_vegas	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
william_safire is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
boston is the home city of the sports team boston_celtics	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
seals is a type of mammals	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
memorial_sloan_kettering is a hospital in the city nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0