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
titanium_carbon_nitride is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
hull_area is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
genuine_record is a political blog	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
calcium_binding_atopy_related_autoantigen_1 is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
john_redman is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dubya is a U.S. politician who is a member of the political group house	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
china is a country located in the geopolitical location asia	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
theodor_kollek was born in the country hungary	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bed is often found in one_bed_room	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_new_york_times_co_ is a shareholder in the company red_sox	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0