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
rick_ramos is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	94.3
warming_expert is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	93.1
smaller_seed is a fruit	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
lymph_nodes_in_leg is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
two_plates is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
jaco_pastorius is a musician who is part of weather_report	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9
google is taller than people	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
math__monkeys__and_the_developing_brain occurrs at the date april_25__2013	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
cavaliers is a sports team that plays against usc	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
equipment is a subpart of hot_water	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9