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
antique_brass_bathroom_faucet is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
ektelon_racquetball_rackets is sports equipment	1111	06-jul-2018	93.0
steady_presence is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
crystal_palace_casino is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
robert_foley is a criminal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
grigory_potemkin belongs to the religion russian_orthodox	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
salt_palace is a stadium or event venue located in the city salt_lake	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
atlantic_monthly is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
oil is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with wheat_flour	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
antonio is a city located in the geopolitical location ut	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4