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
sick_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
mount_agoeng is a mountain	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
battle_of_antietam is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carlo_fontana is an architect	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
back_in_the_saddle_again is a song	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
baltimore hired sheila_dixon	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
diamondbacks is a sports team that plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
edward_johnson is a politician who holds the office of governor	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
salmon_steaks is a fish that can be served with the food sauce in a meal (or dish)	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
switzerland_switzerland is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9