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
salmonella_isolates is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bluff_dale_suspension_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
shallow_metal_pan is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
methodological_information is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lucila_duchesne is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	94.0
cold_water_lake is a lake in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
pests is a type of snails	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
ravens is an organization also known as current_tennessee_titans	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6
william_douglas graduated from college	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
snakes is an animal that preys on reptiles	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0