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
jul_56 is a date	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n30601 is a ZIP code	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
generic_vasotec_ is a product	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
maureen_dougherty is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
kymulga_mill_and_covered_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
pacific is a city also known as san_francisco	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
lice is an invertebrate animal that feeds on blood	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
katahdin is a mountain in the state or province maine	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
stephen_graham died in the location new_south_wales	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
felines is an animal that preys on cat	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2