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
two_monks is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tainted_wheat is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
pear_tea is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
john_carver is a criminal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dotted_butterflyfish is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dave_navarro is a musician who is part of red_hot_chili_peppers	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
woman001 is the guilty in the event police__man_leaves_scene_of_accident_after_striking_car___wdrb_41_louisville_news	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
industrial___commercial_bank is a bank in china	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
william_anderson died in the state or province va	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mattel has acquired learning_company	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0