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
wall_to_wall_mirror is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
right_superior_temporal_sulcus is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
green_village_road is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	93.9
sanvi_dialect is a language	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
konstantin_valkov is an astronaut	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bed is often found in private_cottage	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
unknown is the attacker in the event aleppo_university_bombings	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
long_island_railroad is a transportation system located in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
willie_walsh is the CEO of ba	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
gmc is a specific automobile maker dealer in _uk	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9