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
tiny_blood_capillaries is a part of the body	1111	06-jul-2018	96.8
n1_1_2_minutes is a visualizable object	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
domaine_bequet_winery is a winery	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n1983_tour_de_france is a sporting event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gauge_carbon_steel is a building material	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n6_45 is the time of the event n70_killed_in_nigeria_bus_blasts	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
former_soviet_union is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
alec_baldwin is an actor that worked with the director woody_allen	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
insects is a type of mammals	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
stevie_wonder is a musician in the genre r_b	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4