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
ficolin_3 is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
disease_persons is a physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
gray_leaf_eared_mouse is a vertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
culinary_workers_local is a trade union	1111	06-jul-2018	93.3
_48 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the country singapore uses the currency dollars	1116	12-sep-2018	99.1
wlac is a TV station in the city nashville	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
az_republic is a newspaper in the city downtown_phoenix	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
pakbeng is a city that lies on the river mekong	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
president_jimmy_carter is a politician who holds the office of secretary	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0