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
desk_line is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
scientific_report is a physical characteristic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
medicated_shampoo is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
zsl_whipsnade_zoo is an aquarium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
watauga_county_farmers___market is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
depo_provera is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
south_farm is a farm in the state or province ohio	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lyndon_baines_johnson represents the region u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
sonoran_sea_aquarium is an aquarium in the city tucson	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
end is an event at the location central_london	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8