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
five_viruses is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
exchange_requirements is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
two_criminal_counts ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jones_point_park is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
greylock_federal_credit_union is a bank	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lake_panasoffkee is a lake in the state or province florida	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
merrill_auditorium is a stadium or event venue located in the city portland	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
salon is headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
worms is an invertebrate animal that feeds on wood	1113	15-aug-2018	93.0
scuba_diving is a sport taught in the country __america	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8