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
jenny_s_christmas_cake is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
swollen_lymph_nodes_rash is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
intellectual_property_subcommittee is a political organization that is not part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
prescription_buy_medication_online is a muscle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
white_chinned_thrush is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
clint_eastwood works for carmel_by_the_sea	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
hard is a generalization of rock	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
carroll plays the athletic team position right_center	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
staples_center is the home venue for the sports team kings	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
holliday is an athlete who injured his/her hand	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8