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
small_nonstick_pan is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
more_diesel is a refinery product	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
division_iii_tournament is an award, championship, or tournament trophy	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carla_suarez_navarro is a female	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jan_van_kessel_the_younger is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
karl_rove is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician former_bush	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
eventual_super_bowl_champion_new_york_giants is headquartered in the state or province ny	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
david_climer works for tennessean	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
network_associates_coliseum is a stadium or event venue located in the city oakland	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
spurs is a sports team that played in finals	1113	15-aug-2018	99.9