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
passover_dark_chocolate_nut_cake is a kind of candy	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
onsite_meeting is a perception action	1111	06-jul-2018	95.7
kaiser_permanente_san_francisco is a hospital	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
mecon is a convention	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
quanzhou_dialect is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
equipment is a subpart of hot_water	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
elsie_allen died in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliv_the_indianapolis_colts hired dungy	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
boston_red_sox_tickets is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
the coach torry_holt won the trophy or tournament super_bowl_xlii	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0