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
westfield_horton_plaza_shopping_center is a shopping mall	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
wholesome_home is a location	1113	15-aug-2018	99.7
u_s__army_military_police is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
justice_programs is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
task_force_meeting is a perception action	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
w_bush held the position of president	1115	03-sep-2018	98.4
denver is the capital city of the state or province colorado	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
joseph_conrad wrote the book lord_jim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tsunami_relief happened on the date n2005	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
chevrolet is a specific automobile maker dealer in oklahoma_city	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8