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
personal_selling is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
screw_threaded_machined_components is a tool	1112	24-jul-2018	99.0
unidentified_tree is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
gray_leaf_eared_mouse is a vertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
col_nac__de_san_francisco is a South American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
science is an academic program at the university george_washington_university__s_elliott_school	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
daewoo is a specific automobile maker dealer in los_angeles_ca	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
christian graduated from state_university	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2
soft_drinks is an agricultural product that contains corn_syrup	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
shirt is a clothing item to go with cloak	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8