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
grill_pans is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
harvey_chichester is a journalist	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
lesser_blue_eared_glossy_starling is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
verizon_new_england_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
yellow_bibbed_fruit_dove is a vertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the home stadium of sean_gallagher is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
central_sierra_nevada is a mountain in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
switzerland_switzerland is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
cathy has husband jobs	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
cleveland_browns participated in the event games	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0