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
rubber_tree_plants is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
ellen_drive is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
how_was_the_tay_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.0
niacin_extended_release is a drug	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
future_football is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
patriots_35_21 is an organization also known as former_green_bay_packers	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
memphis is the home city of the sports team memphis_grizzlies	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cecil_fielder is the father of prince_fielder	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
honda is a specific automobile maker dealer in san_antonio	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
great_vow_zen_monastery is a place of worship that practices the religion of buddhism	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0