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
oxford_brookes_university is a university	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bank_of_milton is a credit union	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
modern_outdoor_furniture is a kind of furniture	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
sebasco_estates_maine is a beach	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
phase_iii_studies is a research project	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
piers_park_sailing_center is a park in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kurt_westergaard belongs to the ethnic group danish	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
robledo is a mountain in the state or province new_mexico	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
ectoparasites feeds on lice	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
short_skirts is a clothing item to go with tops	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0