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
mood_related_disorders is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
heron_chicks is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	94.0
asylum_rights is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	93.9
sweet_blossoms is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
national_journal_magazine is a website	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
usc is a sports team that plays against boston_bruins	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
richard_wright contributed to the creative work black_boy	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
golf is a sport with fans in the country china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
aon is a company in the economic sector of insurance	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
national is a bank that bought sbi	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0