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
proper_cells is a type of biological cell	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
sporangiophores is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
flat_bread is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tympanic_branch_of_glossopharyngeal_nerve is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	97.7
ornamental_pear_trees is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
tokyo is the location of the event big_earthquake_shakes_tokyo__17_injured	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
aaron_rodgers is a person also known as p_j__brown	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
the coach andre_miller won the trophy or tournament division	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
arms is a type of weapon produced in yugoslav_federation	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
kahane was born in nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0