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
antarctic_peninsula is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
albert_almora is a monarch	1111	06-jul-2018	97.7
cmj_magazine is a magazine	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ristoratori is a wine	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
triatomine_insects is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
anthem_blue_cross_and_blue_shield is an organization known by the acronym anthem_blue_cross	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
romania is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
white_beans is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with pepper	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
derrick_turnbow is an athlete who wins nextel_cup	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
liver is a subpart of the body within cells	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4