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
american_dog_tick is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ashley_lake is a trail	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
loud_clock is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
lassi is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	98.1
lemon_currant_cookies is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ford is a company that produces toyota_camry	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
hbos terminated the employment of james_crosby	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
cells is a subpart of the body within human_cord_blood	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
john is a person who was written about in the_chicago_tribune	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
irving_azoff is the CEO of giant	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9