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
tumor_viruses is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	96.8
bigger_beats_records is a record label	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
christopher_patterson coaches a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
center_nurse is a sports team position	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
preserved_lemons is a fruit	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
alexander held the position of tsar	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
andrew_ross_sorkin is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
greyhound_bus is a transportation system located in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
walter graduated from college	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4
tea is an agricultural product produced in hong_kong	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0