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
callaway_road is a highway	1111	06-jul-2018	96.1
two_way_mirror is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
sharp_ribbed_salamander is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
castroville_california is an island	1111	06-jul-2018	95.6
corresponding_capacity is a character trait	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the country liberia uses the currency dollars	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
chicken is an animal that eats gravy	1116	12-sep-2018	90.7
russian_language is the language of the country russia	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
the sports team eventual_super_bowl_champion_new_york_giants was the winner of n1921_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
former_green_bay_packers is a sports team also known as eagles	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8