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
recipe_book_collection is a recipe	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
new_confucianism is a visual art movement	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
important_energy_resource is a refinery product	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
monmouth_battlefield_state_park is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
down_in_the_groove is a musical album	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
folk_music is a generalization of rock	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
hirshhorn is a museum in the city washington_d_c_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
gmc is a specific automobile maker dealer in _uk	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
roy_scheider belongs to the ethnic group american	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
john_adams is a U.S. politician who holds the office of secretary	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0