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
spruce_tree is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
william_robson is an author in the scientific field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
great_spruce_bark_beetle is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
charles_stewart_mott_community_college is a university	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
virginia_museum_of_transportation is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
cardura is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
james has wife anne	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
amiens is a city located in the country france_france	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
kathy graduated from college	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
contemporary_art is a museum in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.4