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
jesse_s__somer is an African person	1111	06-jul-2018	92.5
edward_leary is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.6
inntaler_auenland_k_se_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	92.2
n2008___this_study is a research project	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
electronic_sound is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
spain is a country located in the geopolitical location foreign_countries	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
rolls_royce was responsible for rolls_royce_launches_ghost_series_ii	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
american_airlines_center is the home venue for the sports team dallas_mavericks	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
spanish is a language used in the university ohio_state_university	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
subaru makes the automobile subaru_legacy	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9