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
speed_boating is a sport	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
computers_and_technology_magazines is a kind of media	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
bruce_naumann is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	91.7
newquay_town_centre is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
herpes_and_swollen_lymph_nodes is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
guernsey_lake is a lake in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
states is a subpart of south_america	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
dc is a city that lies on the river grand	1113	15-aug-2018	99.2
spiders is an animal that is a kind of black_widow_spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
china is a country also known as portugal	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6