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
common_red_backed_coffee_snake is a reptile	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carolans is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
saint_philip_s_college is a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
anisitsiellidae is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
porking is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	90.2
samsonite has acquired american_tourister	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
j__k__rowling wrote the book harry_potter	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
observer is related to observer_com	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
goldman is a company headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
royal_free_and_university_college_medical_school is a sports team that plays in the league international	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2