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
lecanidae is an invertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	95.1
devry_institute_of_technology_decatur is a train station	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
approximate_inference is an area of study within the field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_shrimp is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
china___xinyang is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
oscar_wilde wrote the book picture_of_dorian_gray	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
liver is a subpart of the body within function	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
denver is a city located in the geopolitical location national	1114	25-aug-2018	98.4
milpitas is a city located in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
salmon_cakes is a fish that can be served with the food sauce in a meal (or dish)	1115	03-sep-2018	99.3