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
connection_fee_phone_cards_calling_card_plans_botswana_phone_cards_no_connection_fee is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
observational_data is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n51_km is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
joshua_fields is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
carburetor_software is a tool	1112	24-jul-2018	98.7
london_times is a newspaper in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
modern_art is a museum in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
waka is a TV affiliate of the network cbs_evening_news	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
president_clinton is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location arkansas	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
dept is a synonym for administration	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8