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
actinomadura_malachitica is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sooes_peak is a mountain	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
kaanapali_parkway is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	93.6
illinois_congressional_delegation is a political organization that is not part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
nbc_affiliates is a company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n106_9_the_point is a radio station in the city houston	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
european_nations is a generalization of austria	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6
ospel belongs to the ethnic group swiss	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
trout is a fish that can be served with the food top in a meal (or dish)	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
great_ormond_street is a hospital in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0