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
leisure_suit is a kind of clothing	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sselling is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
rio_madeira_poison_dart_frog is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
comment_spotlight is software used by machine-learning scientists	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
givens_pond is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
large_herds refers to more than one wildebeest	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
cost is an agricultural product that is usually cut into percent	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
metrolink is a transportation system located in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
recourses is a synonym for minister	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
god is taller than children	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0