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
expresspharmarx_com is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
wood_windows_and_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
red_collared_mountain_babbler is a bird	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
astragalectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
amberton_university is a university	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
martinez is a person who belongs to the organization state_university	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
the home stadium of adrian_aucoin is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
akio_toyoda is the CEO of toyota_motor	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jelena_jankovic is an athlete who beat maria_sharapova	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
oil is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with white_beans	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2