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
soapstone_bath_accessories is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
dicarlo_winery is a winery	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
two_whisper is a parlour game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
thirty_year_period is a sports game	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
maple_floors is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
insects feeds on hornets	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
dave_navarro is a musician who plays the guitar	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
david_ruffin is a musician who is part of temptations	1114	25-aug-2018	98.2
shaq__o_neal is an athlete also known as shaquille_oneal	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
chairs is often found in spacious_veranda	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9