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
n5_2_percentage_points is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
charlene_proctor is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
morinville is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
greg_cryns is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
puc_decision is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	92.2
holiday_inn_express_downtown is a hotel in the city toronto	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
baltimore hired sheila_dixon	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
tarantulas is an arthropod as well as arachnids also is	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
south_carolina_aquarium is an aquarium in the city charlotte	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
music_history is an academic program at the university college	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0