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
place_shapes is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
spousal_abuse_charges ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
marek_koterski is an African person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kaliakra_stadium is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
wil_ledezma is a Mexican person	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
ski is a sport taught in the country china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
small_animals is an animal that preys on mice	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
vinny_del_negro coaches in the league nba	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
punta_gorda_town is a city that lies on the river peace	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
cleopatras_needle is a tourist attraction in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0