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
rice_bowl is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
jotting is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
serotonin_re_uptake_inhibitors is a drug	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n20_01_2012 is a dataset used within the scientific field of machine learning	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
exmouth_area is a building	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
meryl_streep starred in the movie the_devil_wears_prada	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
martina_hingis is an athlete who beat williams	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
arachnids is an arthropod as well as arthropods also is	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the sports leage nfl uses the venue metrodome	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
detroit_lions is a sports team also known as former_green_bay_packers	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6