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
alexander_von_humboldt is a monarch	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
daniel_pratt is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
long_sleeved_sweater is a kind of clothing	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gray_throated_warbling_finch is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
college_of_the_atlantic is a school	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
spiders is an animal that is a kind of arthropods	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
marcus_camby has spouse miller001	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
football_players is a generalization of brad_childress	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mcgrady is an athlete who injured his/her back	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
caesars_palace_hotel is a tourist attraction in the city las_vegas	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9