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
aunt_jean_s_yule_cake is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
plane_lands can be a part of a landscape	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
shape_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
hackensack_area is a building	1111	06-jul-2018	96.5
dyan_denapoli is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	97.8
london_gatwick_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
alessandra_stanley is a journalist that writes for the publication times	1112	24-jul-2018	99.9
yum_brands has acquired kfc	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
products looks like cable	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
bay is a sports team that plays the sport football	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0