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
ash_breasted_sierra_finch is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
the_hamilton_ravalli_republic is a blog	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tour_des_4_cantons is a sporting event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bomb_making_material is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	96.1
advanced_articular_technical_vein is a vein	1111	06-jul-2018	96.0
role is found in observatory	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
senate hired illinois	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
european_countries is a generalization of italy	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
green_foliage has color purple	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
ford is a company that produces meteor	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8