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
individual_moulds is a fungus	1112	24-jul-2018	93.6
sixty_two_years is a non-disease physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	92.6
further_analysis is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
appropriate_awareness is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
critical_thinking_exercise is a cognitive action	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
bobby_gilbert was born in the state or province pennsylvania	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jamie_dimon is the CEO of chase	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
president is a person who has age nonneginteger:n48	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
sharapova is an athlete who wins wimbledon	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
lake_leelanau is a lake in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0