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 2,877,825 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
holland_software is a tool	1012	21-aug-2016	99.0
reach_healthcare_foundation is a part of the government	1012	21-aug-2016	99.5
old_fashioned_buttermilk_donuts is a baked good	1015	13-sep-2016	90.3
university_of_maryland_baltimore_county is a building	1012	21-aug-2016	100.0
hot_cider is a food	1015	13-sep-2016	100.0
n2014 is the time of the event n70_killed_in_nigeria_bus_blasts	1016	21-sep-2016	100.0
tampa_bay_devil_rays is a sports team that won the pennant	1012	21-aug-2016	100.0
white_trash_fast_food is a restaurant in the city berlin	1016	21-sep-2016	100.0
apollo and python are siblings	1012	21-aug-2016	99.9
steelers is a sports team that plays the sport football	1016	21-sep-2016	100.0