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
one_show is a TV show	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
algerian_saharan_arabic is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
sphingomonas_fennica is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hershey_s_zero_candy_bar is a kind of candy	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
pharmacy_no_prescription_cialis is an archaeon	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lake_leelanau is a lake in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
beihai is a city located in the country china	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
austin_zoo is a zoo in the city austin	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
haight_ashbury is a park in the city san_francisco	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
holly_madison was born in the state or province oregon	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0