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
aleksandr_ivant_enkov is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
clemson_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
craven_community_college_havelock_center is a train station	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
patellar_ligament is a part of the body	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
connection_fee_phone_cards_calling_card_plans_botswana_phone_cards_no_connection_fee is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
maryland_general is a hospital in the city baltimore	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kayaking is a sport taught in the country __america	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
indira_gandhi_international_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
triangles has shape area	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
fellhauer plays the athletic team position left_center	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9