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
solidbody is a musical instrument	1111	06-jul-2018	96.0
responsible_thinking is a cognitive action	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
actinomadura_malachitica is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
vibrating_alarm_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
internal_maple_doors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
unknown is the attacker in the event aleppo_university_bombings	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
president_jimmy_carter is a U.S. politician who holds the office of president	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
john_donahoe is a top member of ebay	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
secondary_education is an academic program at the university state_university	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
oregon_state is a sports team that plays the sport golf	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0