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
henry_burnett is a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	97.1
del_tenney is a director	1111	06-jul-2018	96.1
network_interface_cards is a consumer electronic device	1111	06-jul-2018	92.5
slide_rail_shower_set is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
william_wallis is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
orlando_magic is a sports team that plays against raptors	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
recluse is called spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
george_w__bush was born in the state or province maine	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
virgin is the mother of christ_child	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
infiniti is a specific automobile maker dealer in arizona	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0