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
fluorescent_bulb is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
neuroectomy_nodulectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_four_knights is a musical artist	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
oak_lake_lodge is a tourist attraction	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
department_of_the_interior is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
william_douglas graduated from college	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliii is a sports game that took place on the date february_1_2009	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pittsburgh_international_airport is an airport in the city pittsburgh	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
dickinson was born in the city chicago_south	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
european_countries is a generalization of spain	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0