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
chess_success is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	93.7
april_17_issue is a publication	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
sieve_river is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
large_faucet is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
sea_fishing_adventures is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	90.4
the country us_ uses the currency dollars	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cloak is a clothing item to go with dress	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
beer is an agricultural product produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
wean_hall is a building belonging to cmu	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bedroom is often found in site	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8