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
room___hallway is a kind of room	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
carbon_dioxide_molecules is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
n1984_91 is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	92.0
sub_z_cave is a cave	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
open_screen_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
zenger_farm is a farm in the state or province oregon	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
shaun_alexander plays the athletic team position player	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
bed is often found in one_bedroom_cabins	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
maritime_administration is headquartered in the country us	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
lockheed_martin_corp is a bank that has robert_stevens as its CEO	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0