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
doughiness is a physical characteristic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
cubed_butternut_squash is an agricultural product	1111	06-jul-2018	91.9
adult_dragons is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
service_data is a CEO	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
acura_tl_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
china_construction_bank is a bank in china	1114	25-aug-2018	99.4
bed is often found in standard	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
newsday is a company that has an office in the city los_angeles_ca	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
marlins is a sports team that played in three_game_series	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
karachi is the capital city of the state or province sindh	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9