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
freefind is a location	1114	25-aug-2018	93.1
iron_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bootleg__ladybird_enterprises_records is a record label	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
j_robert_oppenheimer is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
cinears_puerto_rico_film_festival is a film festival	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
alex_chilton is a musician who is part of big_star	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
henry was born in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
the coach franco_harris won the trophy or tournament super_bowl_xlii	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
dept is a synonym for administration	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
fluconazole is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0