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
prologue_de_la_torhout_werchter_classic is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pellet_gun_shooting is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	92.0
accommodating is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
quality_fresh_flowers is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
leslie_newman is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
invertebrates is a type of spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	90.6
chairs is often found in common_area	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
jacques_steinberg is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
yma_sumac held the position of soprano	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
belichick coaches the team cleveland_browns	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4