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
flash_lighting is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
mirror_clocks is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
palestinian_fatah_party is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
john_g__blystone is an African person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
fire_ants is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
clint_eastwood works for carmel_by_the_sea	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
camptosar is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
thomas_watson is a top member of ibm	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
regents_park is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
uconn hired calhoun	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9