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
fredericton_airport is a transportation port	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
classic_bernaise_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
initial_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
diet_spread_recipes is a recipe	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
north_american_lake_management_society is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
william_howard_taft represents the region states	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
paul_simonon is a musician who is part of clash	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dufferin_mall is a shopping mall in the city toronto	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
d_j__carrasco is a person who was written about in sports_illustrated	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
ivan_seidenberg is the CEO of verizon_communications	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0