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
emi_group_plc is an organization	1114	25-aug-2018	90.3
purebred_puppies is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	91.9
tristate_zoological_park is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pink_sided_treefrog is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
plantar_calcaneocuboid_ligament is a vein	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
screen looks like n3_5	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
il is a sate or province located in the country usa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
milano is the capital city of the country italy	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
salt can cause dehydration	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
appalachians is a mountain in the state or province tennessee	1116	12-sep-2018	98.3