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
reactor_fuel_rods is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
one_carat_princess is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	96.5
laura_alexander is an actor	1111	06-jul-2018	91.3
bud_butter is a condiment	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
arteria_thoracalis_interna is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
washington_d_c_ is a city that lies on the river potomac	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with potatoes	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
spiders is an arthropod as well as arthropods also is	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
harborview_medical_center is a hospital in the city seattle	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dutch is the language of the country belgium	1114	25-aug-2018	99.8