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
reply_thanks is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
priest_child_abuse ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	92.1
giant_king_crab is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
catholic_home is a location	1113	15-aug-2018	99.4
matrix_theory is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kick is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location soviet_union	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
topeka is a city located in the geopolitical location kansas	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
roy_scheider was born in the state or province new_jersey	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
j_p__howell is a person also known as aaron_rodgers	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
julio_ramirez is an athlete coached by jose_guillen	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0