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
former_test is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pygmy_sculpin is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
contagious_disease is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	95.9
n83_ is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
_swords is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	97.3
oscar_corral works for herald	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
the companies texas_tribune and new_york compete with eachother	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
nicotrol_patch is expected to come to market on july	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
oliver_stone starred in the movie jfk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
seattle_seahawks_21_10 is a sports team that played in games	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0