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
gall_wasps is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
circles_restaurant is a restaurant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
white_bear_river is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
horatius_at_the_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
butlers_wharf is a tourist attraction in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
thome is an athlete coached by jose_guillen	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
snails is a type of invertebrates	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
dodge is a specific automobile maker dealer in connecticut	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
beverly_center_shopping_mall is a shopping mall in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0