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
lateral_pterygoid_muscle is a bone	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6
deer_stag_shoes is a kind of clothing	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
category_table is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
country_capacity is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
taneka_bean is a legume	1111	06-jul-2018	98.0
israel is the parent of yeshua	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
senator_obama is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician biden	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
deere___co is a company also known as de	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliv_the_indianapolis_colts is a sports team also known as ravens	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
the sports leage nascar uses the venue bristol_motor_speedway	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0