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
lesser_clover_leaf_weevil is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n2016_olympic is an instance of the olympics	1111	06-jul-2018	97.8
north_american_lake_management_society is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
diane_williams is a male	1111	06-jul-2018	90.5
hahniidae is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	97.7
n7500 is a room in the building wean_hall	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
creatures is an animal that preys on children	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
cells is a subpart of the body within human_umbilical_cord	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
whitney is a mountain in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
_google_ operates the website google_com	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0