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
generic_vasotec_ is a product	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
uinta_mountains can be a part of a landscape	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
new_fallen_snow is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
infertility_medications is an archaeon	1111	06-jul-2018	93.0
naked_stars is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	92.8
denver_nuggets is a sports team that plays against magic	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
joseph is a politician who holds the office of president	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
chris_bosh is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
provera is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
bobby_gillespie is a musician who is part of primal_scream	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0