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
aefaldness is an emotion	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
times_more_light is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	94.0
prescription_appearance is a muscle	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
bed_bunks is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	93.4
yau_fung is an Asian person	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
super_bowl_xliv_the_indianapolis_colts hired caldwell	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
national_fire_protection_association is headquartered in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
sponges is a type of marine_life	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
bats is an animal that eats seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
kake is a TV station in the city wichita	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0