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
orange_headed_thrush is a bird	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
reply_thanks is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
scutari is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
fonta_credit_union is a bank	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
marcellus_wiley is an athlete	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
mr__smith is a person who belongs to the organization state_university	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
china is a country located in the geopolitical location other_countries	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
e_on is a company in the economic sector of energy	1114	25-aug-2018	98.6
bon_jovi is a musician in the genre american_rock	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
kick is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location new_south_wales	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0