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
alaska_public_employees_association_aft is a trade union	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
flame_thrower is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
large_chocolate_chip_cookie is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
adam_bostick is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pfizer has human agency	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
commission_junction_and_linkshare is an organization known by the acronym commission_junction	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
afghanistan is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
bed is often found in executive_rooms	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
richardson is a male person who moved to the state (or province) washington	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
the sports leage nascar_craftsman_truck_series uses the venue international_speedway	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9