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
jaguar_xj8_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
main_fat_source is a refinery product	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
labyrinth_spider is an arachnid	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
little_wooden_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
joel_zumaya is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
j_r__towles is a person also known as linas_kleiza	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
keira_knightly has spouse victoria	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
jeremy has wife jessica	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
jim_dwyer is a journalist that writes for the publication new_york_times	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
father is the parent of lord_jesus	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0