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
opening_hours_of_the_salisbury_cathedral is a place of worship	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
homeland_security_chief is a kind of office held by a politician	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
creme_anglaise_vanilla_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
raetia is a state or a province	1111	06-jul-2018	97.8
nodes_herpes_lymph_swollen is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
mary is the parent of father	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
shaq__o_neal is an athlete also known as shaquille_oneal	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
holiday_inn_express_century_city is a hotel in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bed is often found in bathroom_unit	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
syracuse_university is a sports team that plays in the league international	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0