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
blog_picture is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
chair_plan is an item found on the floor	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
louis_francois_roubiliac is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
green_front_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
large_triangles is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
crickets is an arthropod that looks like bugs	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
first_english is the language of the country __america	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
union_station is a building located in the city washington_d_c_	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
chelsea is a person who has age 28	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
mr__bush is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician gore	1112	24-jul-2018	98.4