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
hard_disk_drives is a consumer electronic device	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
lee_hotels is a park	1111	06-jul-2018	91.0
page_fill is an office supply	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
n4__years is a musical album	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
michael_smith is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
san_francisco is the home city of the sports team san_francisco_state	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
anne_bancroft starred in the movie the_miracle_worker	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
spencer_pratt has wife heidi	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
susan died in the location new_south_wales	1116	12-sep-2018	98.6
naval_research_laboratory is headquartered in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9