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
representative_michael_mccaul is a U.S. politician	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
genevia_arkansas is a beach	1111	06-jul-2018	91.7
sadness_joy is an emotion	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
luis_valbuena is a Mexican person	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
smith_s_arboreal_alligator_lizard is a reptile	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
berlin_museum is a museum in the city berlin	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports leage nfl uses the venue cleveland_browns_stadium	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
baseball is a sport played in the venue phoenix_municipal_stadium	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
products is a product produced in trinidad_and_tobago	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
boots is a clothing item to go with cloak	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9