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
kansas_state_supreme_court is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
digastric_branch is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
n28_2 is a performance metric used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
human_rights_situation is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	92.2
charlene_proctor is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
new_york_aquarium is an aquarium in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
tim_burton directed the movie the_nightmare_before_christmas	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
english is a language used in the university hong_kong_baptist_university	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
clint_eastwood works for carmel_by_the_sea	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
lotus is a specific automobile maker dealer in _uk	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9