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
dermoidectomy_diaphysectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
esc_2445_san_francisco_san_miguel is a South American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
children_award is a film festival	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
silver_marlin is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
judge_rivkin_carothers is a judge	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
kimpton is a hotel in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
receiver_dez_bryant and kendall_hunter are teammates	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
sutent is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	99.9
kxci is a radio station in the city tucson	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
carolina is headquartered in the state or province new_york_state	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0