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
n2_tert_butyl_6_methylphenyl_isocyanate is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
face_shapes is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
marriot_renaissance_center is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ontario_elections is an election	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
pleasant_hill_shopping_center is a shopping mall	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ottawa is a city located in the geopolitical location national	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
role is found in valley	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9
australia is an organization dissolved at the date december	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
tux is a clothing item to go with shirt	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
european_countries is a generalization of switzerland_switzerland	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0