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
n11_31_26 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	98.0
n2_hours_tops is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
quality_clocks is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
grassland_society_of_southern_africa is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	90.2
brian_burrell is american	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sue_grafton contributed to the creative work a_is_for_alibi	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the country seychelles uses the currency rupees	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
emperor has citizenship in the country russia	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
cadillac is a specific automobile maker dealer in san_antonio	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
john_kerry belongs to the religion catholic	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0