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
hinged_closet_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
new_york_kennedy_airport is a transportation system	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bayesian_networks is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
school_golf is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
hair_beauty_product is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
dragonflies is called insects	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gordon is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location st__petersburg	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
oklahoma_aquarium is an aquarium in the city tulsa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bob_marley is a musician in the genre reggae	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
jason_isringhausen is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0