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
n1_2__ is a machine-learning algorithm	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
r_os is a currency	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
unboldness is an emotion	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
mindless_self_indulgence is a musical artist	1111	06-jul-2018	96.2
canada_states is a country	1111	06-jul-2018	97.5
insects is an invertebrate animal that feeds on roses	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
eve is the mother of lord	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
tarantulas is a synonym for spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
thomas_hardy contributed to the creative work tess_of_the_durbervilles	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
spider_mites is an arthropod as well as pests also is	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9