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
coffee_butter is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
childs_brain is a part of the body	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
steel_fabrications is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
thick_leaves is a vegetable	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
hispaniolan_wheeping_frog is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
aromasin is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	99.8
richard_pryor is a person who died at the age of 65	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
foliage has color golden_yellow	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
yugoslav_federation is a country located in the geopolitical location countries	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
charlotte_lucas has spouse collins	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8