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
radical_islamist_movement is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
alleged_criminal_conduct ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
fur_seal_pups is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	91.9
the_honor_of_the_queen is a book	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
laura_alexander is an actor	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
richard held the position of king	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
venus_williams is an athlete who beat serena_williams	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
miller001 has been charged with contempt	1113	15-aug-2018	99.8
wmgt is a TV affiliate of the network nbc_news	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
varieties is an agricultural product produced in __america	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0