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
city_architecture is an academic field	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gold_grain is a grain	1111	06-jul-2018	93.6
blow_moulds is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	90.2
gmc_sierra_2500_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
texas_southmost_college is a university	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
spiders is an animal that is a kind of black_widow_spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
the companies outside_magazine and new_york compete with eachother	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with peppers	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
ct is a state or province located in the geopolitical location usa	1112	24-jul-2018	99.6
n110_rockets is a type of weapon produced in israel	1114	25-aug-2018	99.9