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
bob_stewart is a musician	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
ceramic_toilet is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
wheat_seeds is a grain	1112	24-jul-2018	98.9
n07_06_2008 is a date	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
arteria_supraobitalis is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with chicken	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
tim_burton directed the movie edward_scissorhands	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
sony is a company in the economic sector of consumer_electronics	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
knowshon_moreno and quarterback_matt_stafford are teammates	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
firstgroup is headquartered in the country britain	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0