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
unforgivable_offence ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
power_boating_magazines is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
udon_noodles is a food	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
n1889___1982 is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
alfred_birkfeld is a monarch	1111	06-jul-2018	96.4
gelsenkirchen is a city located in the country germany	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
smithsonian_national_zoological_park is a zoo in the city washington___d___c__	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
j__k__rowling contributed to the creative work harry_potter	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
h__pylori is a bacteria that causes stomach_ulcers	1115	03-sep-2018	99.0
the sport baseball was played at n1961_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0