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
oil_powder is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
flimsy_wooden_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
community_supermarkets is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
hotel_wolcott is a tourist attraction	1111	06-jul-2018	94.2
detroit_news_online is a blog	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
nissan is a specific automobile maker dealer in virginia	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
steve_ballmer works in the economic sector computer_software	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
european_states is a generalization of spain	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
globe is a newspaper in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
brad_lidge is an athlete who wins world_series	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0