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
ford_park_cemetery is a place of worship	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
black_zebra_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
n1972_the_u_s__supreme_court is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	97.1
devil_s_food_pound_cake is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
staff_students is a victim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
david_lynch directed the movie eraserhead	1115	03-sep-2018	99.7
leda is the mother of castor	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
n3_30pm is the time of the event child_in_involved_in_collision_in_which_mother_was_killed_moved_to_belfast_hospital	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
china is a country located in the geopolitical location certain_countries	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
christian held the position of lord	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2