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
two_screens is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
n1_2__ is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
trinidad_and_tobago_airline_pilots_association is a trade union	1112	24-jul-2018	90.7
moon_bay_restaurant is a restaurant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
flame_thrower is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
football_players is a generalization of alex_smith	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
barack_obama is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location u_s	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
european_countries is a generalization of finland	1116	12-sep-2018	97.1
soft_drinks is an agricultural product that contains corn_syrup	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
fresno_state is a sports team also known as state_university	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0