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
deputy_state_attorney_general is a kind of office held by a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
grand_prix_citt___di_camaiore is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
clarence_w__nelson is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
standard_grain is a grain	1111	06-jul-2018	93.0
mere_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
uconn hired calhoun	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
denard_span is an athlete also known as jackie_robinson	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
downtown_phoenix is the home city of the sports team st__louis_cardinals	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bathory is a musician in the genre metal	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
mcpherson001 was born in washington___d___c__	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0