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
sci_fi_summer_con is a convention	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
sick_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
clarence_w__nelson is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
coconino_gmc is an automobile manufacturer	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
esther_andrews is a director	1111	06-jul-2018	90.4
flavio_briatore is the CEO of nissan	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
larry_hughes is an athlete who led chicago_bulls	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
nj_transit is a transportation system located in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
wallace graduated from college	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
michael_bear is the leader of the city city_of_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0