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
kevin_huntley is a U.S. politician	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
n12652 is a ZIP code	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
business_facilities is a kind of room	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
beans_baked_beans is a fruit	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
angiogenic_blood_vessels is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
virginia_beach is a city located in the state or province virginia	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
microsoft competes with the company responsible for launch_of_ps3	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
edward_johnson is a politician who holds the office of president	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
andre_carson belongs to the religion islam	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kuznetsova is an athlete who wins us_open	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0