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
diana_miller ia a celebrity	1111	06-jul-2018	90.6
certain_criminal_offences ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
they_threw_us_all_in_a_trench_and_stuck_a_mo is a musical album	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
comeys_pond is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
wetland_of_international_importance is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	90.0
jack_abramoff held the position of lobbyist	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
citigroup is a company headquartered in the city nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
frank_chance is a U.S. politician who holds the office of president	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
carl_pavano coaches the team twins	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
bryan_singer directed the movie x_men_2	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6