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
angela_sullivan is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
popover_pans is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
pierce_s_food_mart is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
bagpipe_tune_highland_cathedral is a place of worship	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
bookcase_doors is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
brett graduated from state_university	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
the sports leage mlb uses the venue miller_park	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
mary is the parent of pope	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
jonathan_stewart plays in the league nfl	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
ralph_becker is the leader of the city salt_lake	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0