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
majestic_twelve_apostles_mountain_range is a mountain range	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
mecon is a convention	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
flat_bones is a bone	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
dilly_bread is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hard_labor_creek is a trail	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
football is a sport taught in the country _uk	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
nicorette_gum is expected to come to market on earlier_in_the_year	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
new_york is the location of the event n2009_taconic_state_parkway_crash	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
weei is a radio station in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	99.7
chad_hurley is the CEO of youtube	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0