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
nickel_aluminum_bronze is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kerrville_restaurant is a restaurant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
futon_sleeper_sofa is a kind of furniture	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
orbaden_konferens_and_fritid is a place to ski	1111	06-jul-2018	94.4
bass_tuba is a musical instrument	1111	06-jul-2018	95.4
large_herds refers to more than one buffalo	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ricky_williams is an athlete who wins heisman_trophy	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
hank_stram coaches the team kansas_city_chiefs	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
red_mountain is a mountain in the state or province alabama	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
children is an animal that can develop emotional_disabilities	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0