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
jeff_nelson is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
grimsby is a transportation port	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jim_plunkett_mycella_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
battle_of_montenotte is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
university_of_tennessee_space_institute is a university	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliii is a sports game that took place on the date february_1_2009	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
carbon is a chemical that is a kind of area	1114	25-aug-2018	99.8
macintosh is a synonym for apple_inc	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
beatrix_potter wrote the book the_tale_of_peter_rabbit	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jack_dorsey is a top member of facebook	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8