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
poker_free_online_game is a board game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
clostridium_thermobutyricum is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sausage_offerings is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
spadefoot_toad is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
glucose_source is a refinery product	1113	15-aug-2018	92.1
andalusia is a city located in the state or province alabama	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
national is a bank that bought allahabad_bank	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
capital is a city also known as washington_d_c_	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
mike_schmidt is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the_believer is headquartered in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8