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
battle_of_antietam is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hoffman_la_roche has human agency	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
midday_tea is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	93.1
barbara_hansen is a European person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
apple_springs_texas is an island	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
st__louis_cardinals_catchers_yadier_molina has been charged with treason	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
arnold_schwarzenegger is a U.S. politician who holds the office of california_governor	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
volkswagen terminated the employment of ferdinand_piech	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ford is a company headquartered in the city melbourne	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
aon is a company in the economic sector of insurance	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0