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
deck_chatting is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
el_paso_wintercon is a convention	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
wchy is a TV station	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
ragworms is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
motorola_phones is a consumer electronic device	1111	06-jul-2018	94.9
ryan_braun plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
brain is a subpart of the body within cells	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
samsonite has acquired american_tourister	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
huawei_technologies competes with the company responsible for samsung_galaxy_gear	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
champix is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9