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
superior_and_inferior_labial_branches is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
milford_audi is an automobile manufacturer	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
u_s__district_court_judge_donald_molloy is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
peros_banhos is a state or a province	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
first_medal is a film festival	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
madinah is a city located in the country arabia_saudita	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
francisella is a bacteria that causes tularemia	1112	24-jul-2018	97.8
n5_18 is the time of the event big_earthquake_shakes_tokyo__17_injured	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
insects is called spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
annise_parker belongs to the ethnic group american	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0