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
cat_sound_alarm_clock is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
prescription_drrugs is an archaeon	1111	06-jul-2018	91.7
square_curve is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	94.2
arterial_canal is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
older_people is a magazine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
service is a subpart of sewer	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
raptors is a sports team that plays against sixers	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
george_w is a U.S. politician who holds the office of president	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
steve_schalchlin and whitney_houston are family members	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
kansas_state is a sports team that plays the sport football	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8