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
metallic_mould is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	93.3
additional_award is a film festival	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
drug_counsellor is a profession	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
jamey_carroll is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
canadian_territory is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
napoli is a city located in the country italy	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
bomb is a type of weapon produced in russia	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
triceps a muscle located in bodypart upper_arm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
curt_schilling is an athlete who wins world_series	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
the_solomon_r__guggenheim_museum is a museum in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8