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
environmental_protection_and_biodiversity_conservation_act is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
brazilian_study is a research project	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
serious_traffic_offenses ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ground_next_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tivoli_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
byu is an organization known by the acronym byu_hawaii	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
usa is related to new_york_mets	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
milos_forman directed the movie cuckoo_s_nest	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
paul001 is a person who has attended the school institute	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
mites is a type of arachnids	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9