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
radio_chlew is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
corneal_blindness is a physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
incredible_picture is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
robert_mayo is a musician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
methodist_fayette_hospital is a hospital	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
stafford and knowshon_moreno are teammates	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
atwell_hall is a building belonging to osu	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
nuclear_arms is a type of weapon produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
states is a state or province located in the geopolitical location west	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
voltaire was born in paris	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0