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
n11_felony_charges ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lovely_city is a county	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
glass_aluminum_door is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
tang_shu_shuen is an Asian person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rna_hairpins is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
carnegie was born in nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
insects is called dragonflies	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
mount_miserable is a mountain in the state or province ohio	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
william_davidson is a top member of uk_guardian	1116	12-sep-2018	99.5
mother is the mother of elizabeth	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8