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
simpson_lake is a tourist attraction	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
dog_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
candace_doyle is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
marcuson_creek is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
golf_3_hotel is a hotel	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
anthony_lewis held the position of columnist	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
will_shortz is a journalist that writes for the publication times	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
matt_moore plays in the league nfl	1116	12-sep-2018	94.7
president_warren_harding is a politician who holds the office of secretary	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tim_burton directed the movie alice_in_wonderland	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6