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
balkarians is an ethnic group	1111	06-jul-2018	90.8
joss_supercar is a kind of vehicle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
bolivian_big_eared_mouse is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
general_auditor is a profession	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
u_s__circuit_courts_of_appeal is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
alfred_p__sloan is a top member of gm	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
georgian_terrace is a hotel in the city atlanta	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
louise_story is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
english is a language used in the university new_york_university__s_steinhardt_school	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
crustaceans is a type of marine_life	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0