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
amber_mcnaught is a commedian	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
dorsal_venous_arch is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
unique_finger is a bone	1113	15-aug-2018	95.5
linton_zoological_gardens is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bank_of_newman_grove is a credit union	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
miles_davis is a musician who plays the trumpet	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
anderson graduated from state_university	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
seth_borenstein works for ap_news	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
amarillo is a city located in the geopolitical location texas_tech	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
silk is an agricultural product produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0