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
rounded_rectangle_are_equal is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
japan_travelling_zoo is a zoo	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
generic_vasotec_ is a product	1111	06-jul-2018	93.5
illness_cycle is a physiological condition	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
cacio_a_forma_di_limone_cheese is a cheese	1111	06-jul-2018	97.3
international_education is an academic program at the university college	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
providence is the home city of the sports team brown_university	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
prince_edward_island is a sate or province located in the country canada	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
santa_fe is the capital city of the state or province new_mexico	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
barack_obama is a person who was written about in new_york_times	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4