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
modulated_light_beam is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
buffalos_milk_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	93.1
construction_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
e_magazine is a newspaper	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n91_6_miles is a non-sports, non-electronic game	1111	06-jul-2018	94.3
wbtv is a TV affiliate of the network cbs_evening_news	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
president_jimmy_carter represents the region states	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
commission_junction_and_linkshare is an organization known by the acronym commision_junction	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
prima_kings is a hotel in the city jerusalem	1116	12-sep-2018	97.0
rep_ is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location ohio	1112	24-jul-2018	97.0