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
ellenton is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
compressed_natural_gas is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
roma_street_railway_station is an airport	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
constitutional_democracy is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
american_business_womens_association is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sweet_potatoes is an agricultural product produced in __america	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
jim_dwyer is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
bed is often found in one_bedroom_cabins	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
augusta is the capital city of the state or province ga	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
dubya is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location texas	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4