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
window_frame is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
spondilitis is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ragworms is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
home_resource_center is a shopping mall	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
narcotic_drugs_and_psychotropic_substances is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
laban is the father of pharaoh	1116	12-sep-2018	98.2
calhoun works for uconn	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
jada_pinkett_smith has husband smith	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
heavy_rocket is a type of weapon produced in israel	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
chad_hurley is a person who belongs to the organization youtube	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0