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
chilean_rock_rat is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
blowfly_larvae is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
original_grain is a grain	1111	06-jul-2018	96.4
politickernj is a publication	1111	06-jul-2018	96.6
poker_online_card_game is a board game	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
central_park is a park in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mr__bush is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician dick_cheney	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4
rogers_farm is a farm in the state or province florida	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
united_parcel is an organization known by the acronym ups_express	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bangkok is a city located in the country thailand	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0