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
pacific_beardfish is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
eulophidae is a mollusk	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ernst_plischke is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
inferior_nucleus_of_pulvinar is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	97.2
serotonin_noradrenaline_dopamine is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
armed_forces is an organization known by the acronym members	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
anne_perry wrote the book the_silent_cry	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
william_verity was born in the state or province ohio	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
american_museum is a museum in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
docklands is a tourist attraction in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0