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
tower_hill_area is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
gelston_castle_estate is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
n01_17_2009 is a date	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
jim_hardesty is an actor	1111	06-jul-2018	91.1
n_hexyl_alcohol is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
viacom has acquired mtv	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
beijing is a subpart of china	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
tohoku_shinkansen is a transportation system located in the city tokyo	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the_new_york_times is a newspaper in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
olympia is the capital city of the state or province washington	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0