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
wood_entry_door is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.3
burbank_street is a street	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
cultured_chondrocytes is a type of biological cell	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
boyac__department is a state or a province	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
medical_center_area is a geopolitical entity that is a location	1111	06-jul-2018	92.1
spiders is an arthropod that looks like insects	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carlos_santana is a musician who plays the guitar	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
nissan is a specific automobile maker dealer in usa	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
dh is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
san_francisco_state is a sports team also known as state_university	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9