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
envelope_flaps is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	91.7
kevin_sullivan is a European person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
desk_functionality is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
ethanol_blended_gasoline is a refinery product	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
first_deputy_assistant_secretary is a kind of office held by a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dodgers is headquartered in the state or province ny	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
european_nations is a generalization of portugal	1115	03-sep-2018	99.8
national_aquarium__baltimore is an aquarium in the city baltimore	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lancome is headquartered in the country france_france	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mike is a person who graduated from the university stanford	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8