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
jan_van_kessel_the_younger is an architect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
seed_virus is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
iron_filings is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
krwg_tv is a TV station	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
poker_free_online_game is a board game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
social_room_328 is a room in the building mellon_institute	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
china is a country also known as republic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
macintosh is a synonym for apple_inc	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
san_francisco was damaged in the event n1906_san_francisco_earthquake	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
president_obama is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician hillary_clinton	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8