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
oscar_winner_angelina_jolie is an actor	1111	06-jul-2018	95.7
eschenburg_field is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
therapeutic_abortion is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
babbs_supermarket is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
digital_camera_magazines is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
george has been charged with murder	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mts_centre is a building located in the city winnipeg	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
cost is an agricultural product that is usually cut into percent	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
adventures is a generalization of camping	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dustin_hoffman starred in the movie graduate	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9