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
world_road_race_championships is a sporting event	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
system_estimate is a video game system	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
danville_weekly is a newspaper	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
source_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
reflex_study is a research project	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
smith001 is an athlete who injured his/her foot	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
nuclear_arms is a type of weapon produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
scope is a stadium or event venue located in the city norfolk	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
el_duce is a musician who is part of the_mentors	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
larger_animals is an animal that is a kind of pigs	1112	24-jul-2018	94.8