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
center_interpretations is a sports team position	1112	24-jul-2018	98.5
structure_of_vagus_nerve_bronchial_branch is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	97.1
swollen_lymph_nodes_treatment is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
mcgraw_professor is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
malmignatte_spider is an arachnid	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
citigroup_global_markets terminated the employment of vikram_s__pandit	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
smith is a U.S. politician who holds the office of president	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
london_heathrow_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
dc is a company in the economic sector of insurance	1113	15-aug-2018	98.2
new_yorker_magazine is a newspaper in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8