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
clarence_w__nelson is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
thailand_scuba is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
micky_and_the_motorcars is a musical artist	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
wtca is a radio station	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
volos is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
bob_herbert is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
oregon_ducks is a sports team that played in series	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
ahmed_shah_massoud is a person who died on the date september_2001	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
fcc is a company headquartered in the city washington_d_c_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
urban_meyer coaches the team beloved_ohio_state_buckeyes	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0