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
shut_door is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
david_cay_johnston is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rientrare is a wine	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
stenotic_artery is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
festival_chair is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
adventures is a generalization of canoeing	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliv_the_indianapolis_colts hired caldwell	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
baseball is a sport played in the venue camden_yards	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cambridge is a city located in the state or province massachusetts	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pittsburgh_pirates is a sports team that plays against tampa_bay_devil_rays	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4