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
singapore_capacity is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
inoculated_plates is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
n30_shots is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
james_harrington is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
generous_dining_room is a kind of room	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
new_york_magazine is a newspaper in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
phylloxera is called louse	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
levi_johnston is a person who has age 18	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
istanbul_atat_rk is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
joan_miro is a visual artist in the field of art	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9