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
sawyer_county_record is a newspaper	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
seasonal_mood_disorder is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
sausage_stuffing_topped_chicken_casserole is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
light_development is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	93.0
jessica_snow is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
meryl_streep starred in the movie sophie_s_choice	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
the sports team chicago_bulls was the winner of weeks	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
senate hired illinois	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
gwen_stefani is a musician in the genre pop	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
plain_water is a beverage made from juices	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9