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
natasha_wing is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
west_side_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
spinal_disc_herniation is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
special_mayoral_election is an election	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
eldred_wwii_museum is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
michael_jackson is a person who has age nonneginteger:n50	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cells is a subpart of the body within bovine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
larger_animals is an animal that preys on humans	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
dow_jones001 has acquired factiva	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
london_stanstead is an airport in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0