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
village_voice is an organization	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
off_pump_coronary_artery_bypass_grafting is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
mick_burrows is an Asian person	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
knysna_town_centre is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
children_books is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
mary is the parent of new_orleans_saints	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6
spider_bite is called recluse_spider	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chelsea has been charged with murder	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
kenwood_house is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cats is an animal that preys on larger_animals	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8