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
desk_customers is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
lymph_nodes_on_hands is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
rafael_perez is a fashion model	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
privet_rust_mite is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
spring_woods_church_of_christ is a religion	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
altamonte_springs is a city located in the state or province florida	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dance is a sport taught in the country _uk	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
vt is a sate or province located in the country usa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
santa_barbara_municipal is the capital city of the state or province ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bill_clinton is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician biden	1112	24-jul-2018	97.8