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
pencil_shading is an office supply	1114	25-aug-2018	94.1
athens_boonesboro_road is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
dog_shampoo is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
christine_boisson is a female	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
contact_the_department_head is a visualizable object	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
abbotsford is a city located in the state or province wisconsin	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
equestrian is a sport with fans in the country __america	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
austin_zoo is a zoo in the city austin	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the home stadium of jeremy_roenick is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
fort_wayne_pistons is a sports team that won the nba_finals	1115	03-sep-2018	95.6