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
park_rapids_area is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
rissoidea is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
invesco_stadium is a stadium or event venue	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
john_boswell is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n69_65_loss is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
three is the number of people killed in the event three_killed_in_lebanese_suicide_bombing	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
central_london is the home city of the sports team kings_college	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
national_broadcasting_corporation is an organization known by the acronym nbc_news	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
toni_morrison wrote the book the_bluest_eye	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
summer_dresses is a clothing item to go with skirts	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8