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
ventral_cochlear_nuclei is a kind of brain tissue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
presbyterian_orthopedic_hospital is a hospital	1111	06-jul-2018	92.9
new_orleans_city is a train station	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
laquanda_bean is a legume	1111	06-jul-2018	97.9
pork_sausages is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
expansion is found in valley	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
eve is the mother of lord	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports team yankees was the winner of n1953_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
flowers is an agricultural product produced in soviet_union	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dept is a synonym for administration	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8