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
precision_mold is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
opera_lighting is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	96.4
tour_of_kansas_city is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
new_jersey_lawyer_weekly is a newspaper	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
saline_solution is a visualizable object	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
thyroid_artery arises from thyrocervical_trunk	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
regents_park is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
european_airports is a generalization of london_gatwick	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
quality_suites is a hotel in the city toronto	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
lewis is a politician who holds the office of president	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6