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
essay_comments is a product	1111	06-jul-2018	91.4
violet_leaves is a vegetable	1111	06-jul-2018	92.8
here_s_that_rainy_day is a song	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
decision_tree_learning is an area of study within the field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
renin_angiotensin_system is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with lime	1114	25-aug-2018	98.4
treasure_island_hotel001 is a stadium or event venue located in the city las_vegas	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4
miguel_tejada held the position of shoe_shine_boy	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
shrubbery is a plant that is a kind of palm	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
fmr_corp_ is headquartered in the state or province massachusetts	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0