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
ashtabula_lift_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
varsity_softball is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tear_gas_canisters is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	97.5
jeff_estes coaches a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
pelagiidae is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
dodge is a specific automobile maker dealer in new_york	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
countries is a generalization of south_africa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
carotid arises from subclavian_artery	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jim_mora coaches in the league nfl	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jungle_cat_world is an aquarium in the city orono	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0