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
representative_mike_pence is a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n4pi_con is a convention	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
modern_french_bedroom_furniture is a kind of furniture	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
betty_durden is an African person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.1
carpet_face is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
j__k__rowling contributed to the creative work harry_potter_and_the_goblet_of_fire	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
lupron is a drug worked on by abbot_laboratories	1114	25-aug-2018	98.4
missouri is a state or province located in the geopolitical location us	1115	03-sep-2018	98.5
white is related to shiny	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jay_smith died in the city wilkes_barre	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0