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
pyrgulidae is a mollusk	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
n12529 is a ZIP code	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
class_views is a machine-learning conference	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
annie_lake is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
great_spruce_bark_beetle is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
keith_urban has wife nicole_kidman	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
chipmunk is an animal that eats seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
favre plays the athletic team position player	1113	15-aug-2018	99.7
jeep makes the automobile jeep_grand_cherokee	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
starbucks_coffee_company serves espresso	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0