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
fresh_halibut is a visualizable thing	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
serious_positive_impact is an event outcome	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
bright_light_bulb is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	98.6
server_hosting_provider is a sports team position	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
n1_1_2_minutes is a visualizable object	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
spider_mites is an arthropod as well as insects also is	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
dvd_player looks like display001	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
toni_morrison wrote the book the_bluest_eye	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
carlos_santana has been charged with murder	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kent_mercker is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0