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
port_of_port_purcell is a transportation port	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
large_hunting_knife is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
liberation_army_eln_targets is a terrorist organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
leaf_crops is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
harold_brodkey is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
steve001 works for newton	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
scott_mcnealy is a top member of sun_microsystems	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
satan is the parent of eden	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
steve001 is a person who belongs to the organization history	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
echelon is a building located in the city las_vegas	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9