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
lymph_nodes_in_lungs is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
yellow_spotted_newt is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
robert_mcarthur is a writer	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
antique_wood_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
infectious_viral_disease is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
china is a country located in the geopolitical location population_countries	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
beef_sirloin is a fish that can be served with the food sauce in a meal (or dish)	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
workers is a profession that is a kind of individuals	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
spagnuolo is a person who belongs to the organization saint_louis	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
good_samaritan_hospital is a hospital in the city portland	1116	12-sep-2018	98.8