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
verizon_new_england_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
interface_sequence_returns is a machine-learning conference	1112	24-jul-2018	95.3
apopka is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
barry_walters is a CEO	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
contents_pictures is a musical instrument	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
miguel_de_cervantes_saavedra contributed to the creative work don_quixote	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
john_mccain is a person who has age nonneginteger:n72	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
microsoft_corporation is a company in the economic sector of computer_software	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
orchestras was born in the city chicago_south	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
barbara_boxer was born in the country usa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0