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
j__b__bryant_s_memphis_bbq_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
cardinal_spider is an arachnid	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
crystal_palace_casino is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n_little_rock_arkansas is a beach	1111	06-jul-2018	92.7
michael_morrissey is a criminal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tim_russert is a person who died at the age of 58	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports leage nfl uses the venue sun_devil_stadium	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
fred_goodwin is a person who belongs to the organization scotland	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with cilantro	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
the sport baseball was played at n1996_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0