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
formaggella_del___bec_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
humanitarian_worker is a profession	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
personalized_baskets is sports equipment	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
blinding_glare is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
tour_de_wellington is a sporting event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
scranton_wilkes_barre is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
n1_35_pm is the time of the event n2009_taconic_state_parkway_crash	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
spielberg directed the movie sun	1114	25-aug-2018	99.8
bank_one_ballpark is a stadium or event venue located in the city downtown_phoenix	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
turnham_green is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0