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
steve_salmon is a professor	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
residence_rooms is an office building room	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
american_medical_writers_association is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sweet_bar_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
narrow_footed_worm_salamander is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
roger_cohen is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
president_clinton is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location arkansas	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
charles is a person who moved to the state new_york	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
commonwealth_countries is a generalization of canada	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
philip held the position of king	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0