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
natural_resources_planner is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
two_georgia is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n2_7_5 is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
n12882 is a ZIP code	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
wooster_area is a building	1111	06-jul-2018	94.2
puerto_sucre is the capital city of the country venezuela	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
expensive_camerais part of lens	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
henry_ford is a top member of ford	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pierce_brosnan starred in the movie thomas_crown_affair	1115	03-sep-2018	99.7
ksby_tv is a TV affiliate of the network nbc_news	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0