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
ns_black_metal is a genre of music	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
spruce_bud_scale is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
telephone_unions is a trade union	1112	24-jul-2018	93.0
scaffold_attachment_factor_b is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
expose_shower_mixer is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
assiniboine_park_zoo is an aquarium in the city winnipeg	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jimmy_carter is a person who was written about in the_economist	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the home stadium of milton_bradley is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
obama is a politician who holds the office of potus	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
viacom terminated the employment of sumner_redstone	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0