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
pennsylvania_avenue_heights is a train station	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
privet_thrips is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
domestic_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
environment_court is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
barley_rye is a grain	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
estepona is a city located in the country spain	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
andy_roddick is an athlete who wins wimbledon	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
oliver_stone contributed to the creative work jfk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
thomas has been charged with murder	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
emi is a company in the economic sector of media	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8