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
lower_blepharoplasty is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
goat_breed is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
mid_phase is a non-disease physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
n00601 is a ZIP code	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
paypal_inc is a company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
codfish is a fish that can be served with the food sauce in a meal (or dish)	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ho_chi_minh_city is the location of the event chinese_worker_killed_in_anti_beijing_protest_in_vietnam	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
annise_parker is the leader of the city houston	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
n12_15_minutes has color brown	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
president_reagan is a politician who holds the office of former_assistant_secretary	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9