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
cutaneous_atrophy_due_to_corticosteroids is a physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
gummi_bear is a kind of candy	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
information_process is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
japan_studies_association is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
megaman_zero_2 is software	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
sharks is a type of sea_animals	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
insects is called ticks	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
west_broad_street is a street in the city athens	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
israel was born in jericho	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
nicholas_wade is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2