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
n12891 is a ZIP code	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
frazer_cave is a cave	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
five_mortar_rounds is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
medical_legal_committee is a political organization that is not part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dusky_arboreal_rice_rat is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
sue has husband tony	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
l__a__times is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
george has been charged with murder	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
songbirds is an animal that eats seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	99.0
lukla is a city that lies on the river dudh_kosi	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8