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
southern_clark_s_spiny_lizard is a reptile	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
mitchell_hoop_magazine is a magazine	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
the_shadow_in_the_north is a book	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
francesco_coghetti is a visual artist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lynch_pond is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
xml_feed_tweet_seattle_mariners is an organization also known as indians	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
yolanda_king was born in the state or province alabama	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
shortstop is an athlete who injured his/her back	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
denard_span is an athlete also known as derrick_brooks	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
david and don are siblings	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4