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
hairstyle_magazines is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
spotted_scorpion is an arachnid	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
herpes_and_swollen_lymph_nodes is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
cuff_software is a tool	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
grey_breasted_spurfowl is a bird	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kdtv is a company that has an office in the city san_francisco	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
tiki_barber plays in the league nfl	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
senate hired state	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
golf is a sport taught in the country china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chelsea is a person who has age 28	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0