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
nonperson_felony ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
international_cycling_classic_tour_of_elk_grove is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
german_consequence is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	93.9
claiborne_road is a street	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kathleen_krautter is a female	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
spiders is an arthropod that looks like insects	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
information_technology concerns information	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
honda is a specific automobile maker dealer in san_francisco	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4
katherine_la_nasa has spouse stewart	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
richard_wright wrote the book native_son	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0