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
wing_back_chairs is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
late_night_television is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
whitewater_court is a part of the government	1111	06-jul-2018	92.6
short_insular_gyrus_sulcus_of_insula is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
soldier_s_monument is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
drake is the leader of the city plymouth	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
varitek and orlando_cabrera are teammates	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
princess_street is a street in the city edinburgh	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
whale is a type of whales	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
philip is a musician who plays the guitar	1115	03-sep-2018	99.8