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
melodic_metal is a genre of music	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
ala_annual_conference is a conference	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
spicy_lamb_sausage is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
approx_1_hour is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
prince_abdul_aziz_bin_musa_ed_stadium is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pearl_harbor_memorial is related to united_states_naval_academy	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
todd_jones held the position of reliever	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
insects is an invertebrate animal that feeds on roses	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
football is a sport played in the venue heinz_field	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
hillingdon is a tourist attraction in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9