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
n4_00 is a performance metric used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
golden_tiger_pot_sticker_dipping_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
playing_volleyball is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	90.0
bp_fuel is a refinery product	1116	12-sep-2018	98.0
spice_cookies is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
roger_cohen is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
mount_arvon is a mountain in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
maryland_division is an organization also known as services	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
pusan is a city also known as busan	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
jobs is a person who moved to the state new_york	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0