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
dan_wetzel is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
suitable_wavelength is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
two_pulmonologists is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	91.1
jeff_nathanson is a director	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
heavy_death_metal is a genre of music	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
magic_johnson is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
viacom hired sumner_redstone	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
kxas is a TV station in the city dallas	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
observer is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
yum_brands has acquired taco_bell	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0