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
nissan_patrol_turbo_diesel is a kind of vehicle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
endless_waves is a weather phenomenon	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
explicit_role is a musical instrument	1111	06-jul-2018	94.2
moldavia is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
spotted_ground_squirrel is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
national is a company that has an office in the country netherlands	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
ed_colligan is a top member of palm_inc	1116	12-sep-2018	93.7
the sports team germany was the winner of semi	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
states is a state or province located in the geopolitical location community	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
crickets is an arthropod that looks like grasshoppers	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0