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
sexual_assault_incident ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sporangiophores is a fungus	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
thorn_tree is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
grosse_ile_municipal_airport is a transportation port	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
movie_last_orders is a movie	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
oil is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with lemon	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
states is a state or province located in the geopolitical location soviet_republics	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
smith was born in the city orleans	1116	12-sep-2018	99.0
cat is an animal that preys on feline_friends	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
english_emeritus is an academic program at the university college	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8