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
judge_ian_leeming_qc is a judge	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
matte_photographic_paper is an office supply	1111	06-jul-2018	91.0
patty_spalding_s_spaghetti_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
store_bought_yeast is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
sex_education is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
uterus is a subpart of blood	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
hayes is a U.S. politician who holds the office of secretary	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
senegal is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
medication is expected to come to market on earlier_in_the_year	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
knicks is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	97.5