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
home_medical_transcription is a building	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
clarence_w__nelson is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
search_option is an economic sector	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
party_s_white_mushroom_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
cancer_of_the_lymph_nodes is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
center is a role for players of basketball	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
hong_kong_special_administrative_region is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
britney_spears and alli_sims are family members	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
alex_chilton is a musician who is part of big_star	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
sweets can cause cavities	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0