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
sofa_set_designs_small_corner_sofa is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
turkey_coronavirus is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
collin_dexter is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
dodge_truck_d50_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rare_meeting is a perception action	1111	06-jul-2018	93.3
bugs is called dragonflies	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
washington is taller than two_million_people	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cascade_locks is a city that lies on the river columbia	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
european_states is a generalization of italy	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
first_data is a company headquartered in the city atlanta	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0