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
interop is a conference	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
m_night_shyamalan is a male	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
indoor_mosaic is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
frosted_glass_doors is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
saltines is a visualizable thing	1111	06-jul-2018	95.5
starbucks_coffee_company serves espresso	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
esther held the position of king	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
arms is a type of weapon produced in yugoslav_federation	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
metrolink is a transportation system located in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
shanghai is a city that lies on the river huangpu	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0