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
n10_01_03 is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
erick_zonca is a director	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
steady_breezes is a weather phenomenon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
ringtone_mouse is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
two_condenses is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	91.7
zenger_farm is a farm in the state or province oregon	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jobs is a person who moved to the state new_mexico	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
salotti plays the athletic team position right_field	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
european_airports is a generalization of rome_fiumicino	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
richard is a U.S. politician who holds the office of u_s__president	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2