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
first_story_window is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
monde_sauvage_safari_zoo is a zoo	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
marvel_cave is a cave	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
plug_doors is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
judge_safer_espinoza is a judge	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
shawl_collar is a clothing item to go with jacket	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
mark is a person who moved to the state georgia	1115	03-sep-2018	99.8
julian_mcmahon has spouse burns	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
the home stadium of andrew_shaw is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
william_h__macy starred in the movie fargo	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9