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
robert_purdie is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
metal_machine_screws is a tool	1112	24-jul-2018	98.7
chilean_national_zoo is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
digital_camera_magazines is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
pressure_cooker_set is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
kipling001 was born in bombay	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
state_bank is a company in the economic sector of public_sector	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
dodd_hall is a building belonging to ucla	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lake_ontario is a lake in the state or province new_york_state	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
yugoslav_federation is a country also known as croatia	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4