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
rita_jackson is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
common_snow is software used by machine-learning scientists	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
tulane_university is a school	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
large_sharp_knife is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
hilton_shreveport is a hotel	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
middlesex_turnpike is a street in the city bedford	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
regional_rail is a transportation system located in the city philadelphia	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
former_green_bay_packers is an organization also known as seattle_seahawks_21_10	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
kexp is a radio station in the city seattle	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports leage nba uses the venue madison_square_garden	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0