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
quick_smile is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	91.5
paper_mill_workers is a trade union	1111	06-jul-2018	90.1
middlesex_gmc is a company	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
open_doors is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
azure_lake is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
red_coat is a clothing item to go with hat	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
joe_strummer is a musician who is part of clash	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
princess_street is a street in the city edinburgh	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
davis_guggenheim directed the movie inconvenient_truth	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
crustaceans is a type of shrimp	1113	15-aug-2018	97.4