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
n8_4_percentage_points is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
transportation_committee is a political organization that is not part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
specific_classes is a TV show	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
indo_pacific_bonefish is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
u_s__army_military_police is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
brown_stadium is a stadium or event venue also known as browns_stadium	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
cells is a subpart of the body within tumor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
sen__john_mccain is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician gov__sarah_palin	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
toshiba has acquired westinghouse	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
the sports leage mlb uses the venue sbc_center	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9