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
los_angeles_metropolitan_medical_ctr is a hospital	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chalk_hill_winery is a winery	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
shovel_headed_treefrog is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chocolate_pound_cake_recipe is a recipe	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
quick_computer is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
hp has acquired mercury	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
chicago_bulls is a sports team that plays against raptors	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
english is a language used in the university byu	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
joseph_conrad wrote the book lord_jim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
larger_animals is an animal that preys on cats	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0