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
ted_website is a website	1111	06-jul-2018	96.0
endless_cave is a cave	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ealing_broadway_station is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
mcdonalds_food___family_center is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
large_rear_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
seals is a type of marine_mammals	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
ksci is a TV station in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
ayn_rand contributed to the creative work fountainhead	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
sydney is the capital city of the state or province nsw	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
cleveland_browns is a sports team that played in super_bowl	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9