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
capex_investment is an economic sector	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pinnacle_towers_tower_mooringsport is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
greg_software is a tool	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
cranial_bones is a part of the body	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
nicole_krauss is a person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the country syrian_arab_republic uses the currency pounds	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
vanity_fair is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
edward_johnson is a politician who holds the office of senator	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
carlos_carrasco is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bugs is called dragonflies	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9