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
salted_nuts is a fruit	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
contents_guide is a musical instrument	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
ward_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
outrageous_murder ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tran_thi_ly_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
harare is the capital city of the country zimbabwe	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
roddick is an athlete who wins u_s__open	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
knsd is headquartered in the city san_diego	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pain is an emotion associated with chronic_pain_syndromes	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
elsie_allen died in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0