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
pompom_crab is a crustacean	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
spider_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	98.2
appropriate_awareness is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
the_paul_o_grady_show is a TV show	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
coral_sands_beach_resort is a hotel	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sheetrit is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location israel	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
chad_mcqueen is related to chad_mcqueen	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
snails is a type of small_animals	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
microsoft was responsible for microsoft_to_offer_xbox_one_without_kinect	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
smell is a subpart of the body within system	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9