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
hair_interlining is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
table_repair is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
two_overlapping_circles is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
approximate_inference is an area of study within the field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sialolithotomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
brown_recluse is an arthropod as well as recluse_spider also is	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
football_players is a generalization of drew_bledsoe	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
jesus held the position of king	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
n30 is the number of people injured in the event one_dead__30_injured_in_southern_pakistan_quakes	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mma is a sport with fans in the country _uk	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0