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
african_coconut_crab is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
citizens_certain_rights is a socio-political term	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
drug_counsellor is a profession	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
incandescent_lights is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
internet_learning is a physical action	1112	24-jul-2018	92.8
moises_alou is the parent of felipe_alou	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
aquarium_of_the_americas is an aquarium in the city new_orleans	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
gmc is a specific automobile maker dealer in canada	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
michael_hancock is the leader of the city denver	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the home stadium of kris_versteeg is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0