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
geryonidae is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	94.8
soft_sky is a color	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
greg_software is a tool	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
recent_midterm_elections is an election	1111	06-jul-2018	97.8
m_night_shyamalan is a male	1111	06-jul-2018	90.3
visiting_assistant is a synonym for studies	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
tim_burton directed the movie demon_barber_of_fleet_street	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9
lewis wrote the book chronicles_of_narnia	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
boston_children_s_museum is a museum in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
indiana terminated the employment of crean	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0