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
video_poker_bonus is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	95.9
breakfast_home is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
radio_chlew is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
battle_of_shamkor is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
assistant_youth_director is a kind of office held by a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hayden_memorial_library is a building belonging to mit	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
craig_barrett is a top member of intel	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
spider_mites is an arthropod as well as bugs also is	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
ectoparasites feeds on lice	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
dickinson_college is a sports team also known as college	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8