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
bosnian_elections is an election	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
lombardy_street is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	93.3
youth_librarian is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	95.0
present_picture is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
n6_55_pm is a time	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dan graduated from state	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
english is a language used in the university san_francisco_state	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
cal_ripken_jr plays the athletic team position player	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
new_orleans_international is a building located in the city new_orleans	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
large_herds is a generalization of elk	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4