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
food_stamps_software is a tool	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
debbie_herman is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
genioglossus_or_geniohyoglossus_muscle is a muscle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
michigan_city_hotels is a hotel	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
icnl is a conference	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
dc is a city that lies on the river grand	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
taxpayers participated in the event result	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6
j__k__rowling contributed to the creative work harry_potter_and_the_goblet_of_fire	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
fdr is a politician who holds the office of president	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
cows refers to more than one large_herd	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8