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
vanity_led_kitchen_faucet is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
contagious_disease is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	95.9
cet_services_inc is a biotech company	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gale_creek is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ear_molds is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
john_steinbeck wrote the book east_of_eden	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lucius and arthur are siblings	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
columbia is a city also known as port_clements	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
louis_armstrong_new_orleans_international_airport is an airport in the city new_orleans	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
chisos is a mountain in the state or province texas	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0