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
jim_plunkett_mycella_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
membrane_cofactor_protein_isoform_1_precursor is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dipangkorn_rasmijoti_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
tim_marx is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
sub_z_cave is a cave	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jonathan_van_every is an athlete who injured his/her arms	1115	03-sep-2018	99.2
subaru is a specific automobile maker dealer in virginia	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
greg_norman_and_ted_robinson is an athlete who wins masters	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
crabs is a type of crustaceans	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
toni_morrison wrote the book the_bluest_eye	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0