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
paracentral_lobule is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
shabda_raaj is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
date_and_number_square_rubber_stamps is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	95.4
central_missionary_baptist_chr is a religion	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
spryness is a physical characteristic	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
the companies new_york and paper compete with eachother	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
leo_maguire died in the country great_britain	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
football_players is a generalization of roy_williams	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dee_brown plays in the league nba	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jeffrey_r__immelt held the position of brand_manager	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0