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
econo_lodge_jefferson_city is a hotel	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
childhood_practice is an academic field	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n1993_kidnapping ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
cubed_steak is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
beautiful_orchids is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
movie_actors is a generalization of dustin_hoffman	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
bank_america is a bank that has brian_moynihan as its CEO	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
china_construction is a bank in china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
ark contributed to the creative work commandments	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
wvit_tv is a TV station in the city hartford_connecticut	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0