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
big_mallard_creek is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
first_story_window is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
heavyweight_paper is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	95.3
volvo_s40_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
plaster_molds is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
arachnids is called scorpions	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hia_farrow belongs to the ethnic group american	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
empire_state_building is a building located in the city nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
sherwood_drive is a street in the city augusta	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
the sports leage nba uses the venue american_airlines_center	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6