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
veronica_hamel is a male	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
commensal_porcelain_crab is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
thelma_mariano is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	90.6
comment_every_year is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
saint_john_harbour_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
columbia_presbyterian is a hospital in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
nissan is a specific automobile maker dealer in indianapolis	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
english is a language used in the university george_washington_university__s_elliott_school	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
dubya is a U.S. politician who is a member of the political group house	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
maple_view_farm is a farm in the state or province north_carolina	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0