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
mark_leblanc coaches a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	95.7
chanthaburi is a state or a province	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
azure_sky is a color	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
aid_expenses is a machine-learning conference	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
computational_modelling is an area of study within the field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
senators is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
short_skirts is a clothing item to go with pants	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
betty_grable has spouse james	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
don_heck died in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
wqrf_tv is a TV affiliate of the network fox	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0