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
lingua_franca_nova_language is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
sony_vaio_laptop is a consumer electronic device	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sicilia_queer_filmfest is a film festival	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
saw_scaled_vipers is a reptile	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
health_project is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
puerto_rico is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
contact_the_division is a synonym for services	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
biaxin is a drug worked on by abbot_laboratories	1114	25-aug-2018	99.6
federal_motor_carrier_safety_administration is an organization known by the acronym fmcsa	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
hamilton_lake is a lake in the state or province indiana	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0