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
yeast_site is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
representative_dutch_ruppersberger is a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
mango_indian_style_recipes is a recipe	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
klippel_feil_syndrome_recessive_type is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
green_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ted_lilly plays for the team chicago_cubs	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
motorola has acquired symbol	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
ray was born in the city orleans	1116	12-sep-2018	94.2
barack is a U.S. politician who holds the office of first_democratic_presidential_candidate	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
northwick_park is a hospital in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0