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
dorsal_nasal_artery_posterior_cerebral_artery is a nerve	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
phayre_s_squirrel is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
major_league is a sports league	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
clear_round is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	94.3
gray_throated_warbling_finch is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
jerusalem is a city located in the geopolitical location jewish_state	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4
bottlings is a beverage made from pinot	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
football_players is a generalization of stephen_davis	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
adventures is a generalization of rafting	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
naval_research_laboratory is headquartered in the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9