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
johann_georg_mayr is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dermoidectomy_diaphysectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
american_alpine_club is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
pot_roast_sandwich_recipe is a recipe	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
bed_the_whole_time is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	91.6
spanish is a language used in the university george_washington_university__s_elliott_school	1114	25-aug-2018	99.6
john_f__kennedy_international is a building located in the city queens	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lorenzo_barcelo plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
washington_square_park is a park in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
engineering_degrees concerns computer	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4