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
non_plastic_bowl is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
i_m_a_stranger_here_myself is a book	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
child_abuse_prevention_and_treatment_act is a legislative bill	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
colossians_2_13_14 is an ethnic group	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
gran_melia_shanghai is a tourist attraction	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
james_adams died in the city atlantic_city	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
laban is the father of pharaoh	1116	12-sep-2018	98.2
museum_of_sex is a museum in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
u_s__department is headquartered in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bed is often found in unique_room	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4