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
wheat_options is a grain	1112	24-jul-2018	92.6
ashland_community_college is a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
shrimp_and_herb_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
technology_rock is a genre of music	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
envelope_flaps is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	91.7
king_bed is often found in rooms	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
stephin_merritt is a musician who is part of magnetic_fields	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
olympia is the capital city of the state or province washington	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
garcia is a politician who holds the office of president	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
george was born in the city glasgow	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6