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
chicken_cream_gravy is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ec_states is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
crispy_polenta is a food	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
new_zealand_mantis_shrimp is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
warwick_street is a street	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the companies paris_match and new_york compete with eachother	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
owens_corning is a company headquartered in the city sydney	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kabul is the capital city of the country afghanistan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
roger is a person who has attended the school college	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
eggs is an agricultural product coming from hawksbill_turtle	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4