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
inner_square is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
spicy_fig_sauce is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
hair_care_conditioner is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
cochran_journal is a blog	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pellet_gun_shooting is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	92.0
alberta is a city that lies on the river north_saskatchewan	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
emend is a drug worked on by merck	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
older_people participated in the event result	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
seoul is the capital city of the country south_korea	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
black_cap is a clothing item to go with shoes	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8