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
chemistry_chemistry is an academic field	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
coeliac_plexus is a vein	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
prescription_acid is a muscle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
lee_kang_sheng is a male	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
alfred_winslow_jones is a monarch	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
edmonton is a city located in the geopolitical location province	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
southern_pines is a city located in the state or province north_carolina	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
aly_khan and rita_hayworth are family members	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
doors is a building feature made from the building material large_aluminum	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
fresno_state is a sports team also known as state_university	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0