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
rights_activities is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
romantic_evening_beginning is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	97.1
unreasoningness is an emotion	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
alicia_machado is a Mexican person	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
tour_des_4_cantons is a sporting event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
paul_mccartney is a musician who is part of the_beatles	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
brandon_phillips is an athlete who led reds	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
baltimore_colts_in_super_bowl_iii is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
weapons is a type of weapon produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the coach darren_mcfadden won the trophy or tournament super_bowl	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0