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
bulla_osteotomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
freshwater_boating is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
child_status_protection_act is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
gasoline_blending is a refinery product	1114	25-aug-2018	94.5
prescription_caffeine is a muscle	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
wcbi is a TV affiliate of the network cbs_evening_news	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
marc_chagall is a visual artist in the field of art	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
weapons is a type of weapon produced in american_cities	1113	15-aug-2018	99.4
commision_junction is an organization known by the acronym commission_junction_and_linkshare	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
fresno is the home city of the sports team california_state_university	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2