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
change_monitoring is a physical action	1112	24-jul-2018	97.0
uterine_tube is a part of the body	1111	06-jul-2018	94.7
volvo_120_series_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
libertarian_futurist_society is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
nato_commander is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
kootenay_lake is a lake in the state or province british_columbia	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
william held the position of king	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dramatic_literature is an academic program at the university college	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
spiders is called recluse	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
skiing is a sport with fans in the country china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8