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
foundation_chair is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
world_famous_tower is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
poker_calculations is a cardgame	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
commercial_capital_bancorp_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
clubionidae is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hillary has husband president_bill_clinton001	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
adventures is a generalization of biking	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
nenad_krstic is an athlete who led new_jersey_nets	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports team oregon_ducks was the winner of n2007_stanley_cup	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
tricep a muscle located in bodypart arm	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4