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
boardwatch_magazine is a website	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kenalog_cream is a drug	1111	06-jul-2018	90.1
n06_18_2005 is a date	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
west_coast_rock_lobster is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
guwahati_zoo is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carl_bernstein is a journalist that writes for the publication washington	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6
shepherds_bush is a park in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
hilgard_house_westwood_village is a hotel in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
midnight_oil is a musician in the genre rock	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
holliday plays the athletic team position player	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9