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
sierra_safari_zoo is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
envelope_flaps is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	91.7
n7_p_m__tomorrow is a date	1111	06-jul-2018	90.1
commercial_finance_association is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
redskins_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
fujitsu is a company also known as nec_corp	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
loose_fitting_clothing is a clothing item to go with hat	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
abbeville is a city located in the state or province alabama	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
lungs is a subpart of the body within side001	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
topeka is the capital city of the state or province ks	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0