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
airtran is a transportation system	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
variegated_laughing_thrush is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
desk_coordinator is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
kathleen_walsh is an Australian person	1111	06-jul-2018	90.5
chocolate_truffle_cookies is a baked good	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with onion	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
scorpions is called spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
chrysler is a specific automobile maker dealer in illinois	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
chevrolet makes the automobile caprice	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
spider_mites is a type of bugs	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7