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
n57_52_victory is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	93.0
common_newt is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
erica_alexander is american	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
margaret_sullavan is a commedian	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
monster_hunter__freedom_2 is a video game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
richmond is a city that lies on the river yarra	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
states is a state or province located in the geopolitical location north_america	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kennedy represents the region us	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
black_cod is a fish that can be served with the food top in a meal (or dish)	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
henry001 held the position of head	1114	25-aug-2018	98.4