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
center_ends is a sports team position	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
n7_6_percentage_points is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
riva_del_garda is a visualizable scene	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
pear_tea is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
aleksand_r_aleksandrov is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
la_aurora_international_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
reggie_bush and brees are teammates	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
susan_sarandon starred in the movie dead_man_walking	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
the home stadium of brent_sopel is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
folk_music is a generalization of rock	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8