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
christia_bean is a legume	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
the_caribbean is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
bradley_airport is a transportation system	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
glass_molders_plastics_afl_cio is a trade union	1111	06-jul-2018	92.5
yellow_bibbed_fruit_dove is a vertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
deron_williams plays in the league nba	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
psychology concerns human_behavior	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
spider_mites is an invertebrate animal that feeds on plants	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
good_samaritan_hospital is a hospital in the city portland	1116	12-sep-2018	98.8
j__k__rowling contributed to the creative work harry_potter_and_the_goblet_of_fire	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4