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
phone_hire is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
corporate is a company	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
two_and_a_half_hour is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
inflamatory_diseases is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
throne_room_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
hemp is an agricultural product produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
royal_prince_alfred is a hospital in the city sydney	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
community_arts is an academic program at the university college	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
virgin is the mother of angels	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bush is a person who was written about in denver_post	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0