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
light_heating_oil is a refinery product	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
kessler_s_thrush is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	92.5
uran is a geopolitical entity that is a location	1111	06-jul-2018	92.0
tattinger_champagne is a wine	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
warren_weaver is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	92.5
information_technology concerns information	1115	03-sep-2018	99.9
math__monkeys__and_the_developing_brain occurrs at the date april_25__2013	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
linda_hogan is a person who has age 46	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
venice_marco_polo_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
triangle has shape circumcircle	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8