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
premium_balls is sports equipment	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
n7_5 is a performance metric used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
caving_cuckoo_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
drug_addiction_treatment_act is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_execution_of_all_things is a musical album	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
alex001 is a musician who plays the guitar	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
Eating heart decreases the risk of malignancies	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
friends can be served with beer	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9
bud_norris plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
short_skirts is a clothing item to go with tops	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0