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
n5_7_percentage_points is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
kedm is a radio station	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
chair_ottomans is a kind of furniture	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
retinol_dehydrogenase is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
wall_clock___clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
nina_tassler is a top member of cbs_evening_news	1116	12-sep-2018	95.8
management is an academic program at the university institute	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
eurostar is a transportation system located in the city new_south_wales	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
tea is an agricultural product produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jackson_quezada plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8