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
usc_symphony_orchestra is a musician	1111	06-jul-2018	90.9
potato_wedges is a food	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
real_foods_market is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
flexor_longus_digitorum_pedis_muscle is a muscle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
ringtones_cellphone is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
the home stadium of jocelyn_thibault is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
radisson_sas_portman_hotel is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
vince_carter coaches the team new_jersey_nets	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
terry_moran is a person who belongs to the organization abc_news	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
london_stansted_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0