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
two_male_strippers is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	90.1
rights_education_activities is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
phosphatidylinositol is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
sepsis_sepsis is a physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
sunset_gardens_cemetery is a place of worship	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
fresno is the home city of the sports team california_state_university	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
children is an animal that can develop hearing_loss	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
wall_street_journal is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
henry is a politician who holds the office of governor	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
justine_henin_hardenne is an athlete who wins french_open	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0