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
mitch_talbot is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chapter_7_80 is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
hoffman_la_roche has human agency	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
ground_cocoa_beans is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
alger_vineyards_and_winery is a winery	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
skies has color blue	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
stanford hired johnny_dawkins	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
william_safire is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
basketball is a sport played in the venue time_warner_cable_arena	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
tux is a clothing item to go with boots	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8