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
diversional_activities is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
comment_am is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
baldwin_beach is a trail	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
mood_related_disorders is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
araneus_bilineatus is an arachnid	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n1_10_a_m_ is the time of the event bombing_at_egypt_police_station_kills_12	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
methotrexate is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
ron_grant is the CEO of aol_video	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
reptiles is an animal that preys on pets	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
nonneginteger:n4 was the winning score in n2002_stanley_cup	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0