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
mercury_capri_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
second_street_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.5
comment_this_study is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
robert_mate_patricks_cathedral is a place of worship	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
starachowice is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
amenities is a subpart of water	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
tsunami_relief happened on the date n2005	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pests is called ticks	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
port_columbus_international_airport is an airport in the city columbus	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kpfa is a radio station in the city berkeley	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0