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
party_of_the_democratic_convergence is a political party	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
black_stainless_steel is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
greene_county is an airport	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
infection_signs is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
population_this_study is a research project	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
n7 is the number of people that died in the event n2000_nicaragua_earthquake	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kevin_rudd held the position of prime_minister	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
english_language is a language taught in language schools in the city san_francisco	1112	24-jul-2018	92.9
network_associates_coliseum is a stadium or event venue located in the city oakland	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
tibial_artery arises from popliteal_artery	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0