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
eastern_red_bat is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
building_trades_federal_cr_union is a credit union	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
iron_gratings is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
christian_legal_society is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
reply_commenting is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
xerox has acquired acs	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
gordon_e__moore is a top member of intel	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
annise_parker was born in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
microsoft was responsible for microsoft_surface_pro_3_to_launch_alongside_surface_mini_	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
metrolink is a transportation system located in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0