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
n8_8 is a performance metric used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n8_4_percentage_points is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
antihistamine_claritin is a drug	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
black_miao___language is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
phayre_s_squirrel is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ted_turner is the CEO of cnn	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
baltimore_colts_in_super_bowl_iii is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
sweet_potatoes is an agricultural product produced in __america	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
the sport baseball was played at n2000_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
international_business_machines_corp is an organization known by the acronym ibm	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0