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
ground_peppercorn is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
kitts___nevis is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	97.8
kay_roberts is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
brands_outdoor_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
premier_bird is a vertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
verizon_center is a stadium or event venue located in the city washington_d_c_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
european_nations is a generalization of italy	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
indianapolis is the home city of the sports team baltimore_colts_in_super_bowl_iii	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
triangle has shape definition	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
commercial_appeal is a newspaper in the city memphis	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8