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
sabbathday_lake is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
locked_car_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
electricians_hand_tools is a tool	1112	24-jul-2018	98.8
blyth_s_hornbill is a bird	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kvct_tv is a TV station	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
chicken is an animal that eats goat_cheese	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mr__bush is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician mccain	1112	24-jul-2018	96.9
silvestre_herrera died in the state or province arizona	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
beds is often found in standard	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
raptors is a sports team that plays against magic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0