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
n10163 is a ZIP code	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
n45_40 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	93.2
spicy_lamb_sausage is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
university_of_great_falls is a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
discovery_girls is a publication	1111	06-jul-2018	91.7
john_radcliffe is a hospital in the city oxford	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
heritage_farms is a farm in the state or province ohio	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
telephone looks like connections	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
james_madison is a politician who holds the office of secretary	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
english is a language used in the university northwestern_university	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0