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
arteria_circumflexa_iliaca is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
little_wooden_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
maryetta_bean is a legume	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
david_henderson is a musician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
fultondale is a visualizable object	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
rachel graduated from college	1114	25-aug-2018	94.1
jerome_k__jerome contributed to the creative work three_men_in_a_boat	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
jackson is the capital city of the state or province mississippi	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
u_s__embassy is headquartered in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
greg_olsen is an athlete who led n1985_chicago_bears	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4