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
contact_lulu is a book	1111	06-jul-2018	92.9
alexander_of_serbia is a monarch	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
ward_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
hot_shots_golf_3 is software	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rights_day is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	95.3
clinton is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician george_mitchell	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
marlins is a sports team that played in three_game_series	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
celeste_center is a tourist attraction in the city columbus	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
georgian_terrace is a hotel in the city atlanta	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
wics_tv is a TV station in the city springfield	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2