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
richard_wood is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
plaintree_systems_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sir_edward_appleton is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
email_success is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
compatibility_process is a cognitive action	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dodd_hall is a building belonging to ucla	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kanye_west is a musician in the genre rap	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
cosmopolitan_hotel is a hotel in the city toronto	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
japanese_language is spoken in the city tokyo	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
swedish_medical_center is a hospital in the city seattle	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0