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
mandating is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
cryptochilidae is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
liberation_in_finland is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
chair_floor_mat is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
downtown is a location	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
beth was born in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dodge is a specific automobile maker dealer in virginia	1115	03-sep-2018	99.8
martin001 has wife katherine	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
motorola has acquired symbol	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
morgan_stanley is a bank that has james_p__gorman as its CEO	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0