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
unlined_paper is an office supply	1111	06-jul-2018	90.2
orchid_weevil is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
big_mallard_creek is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
results_home is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hidden_markov_models_iii is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
bush is a person who was written about in denver_post	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
san_diego_chargers is a sports team that plays the sport football	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
n34 is the number of people injured in the event n2006_huntsville__alabama_bus_accident	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
artillery_shells is a type of weapon produced in israel	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
gynecology is an academic program at the university college	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0