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
foie_gras_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
felonious_homicide ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
interest_rate_credit_cards is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	94.9
north_east_trade_winds is a weather phenomenon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
sandwich_massachusetts is a geopolitical entity that is a location	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
aa is a company also known as alcoa	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
amazon_com has acquired alexa	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
south_bermondsey is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	94.1
henry is a politician who holds the office of president	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
president_obama is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician palin	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2