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
n2011_ontario_election is an election	1112	24-jul-2018	97.8
paprika_powder is a visualizable thing	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
joe_l__reed_acadome is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
applebees_tuscan_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	90.6
water_basketball is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
h__lee_scott is a top member of wal_mart_stores	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
dan is a person who has attended the school high_school	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
size_bed is often found in first_bedroom	1114	25-aug-2018	94.2
port_au_prince is the capital city of the country haiti	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
virgin is the mother of peter	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8