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
five_mortar_rounds is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
oxytrichidae is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_barbirolli_string_quartet is a musical artist	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
flocking is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
saltsburg_road is a street	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
brandeis_university is a sports team that plays in the league international	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
league_of_nations is headquartered in the country switzerland_switzerland	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
screen looks like n2_inch	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
bob_howry plays for the team chicago_cubs	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
great_war happened on the date august_1914	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0