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
andreas_g__hofmann is an author in the scientific field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
incredible_picture is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
nice_breakfast is a type of meat	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
national_journal_magazine is a website	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
america_awards is an award, championship, or tournament trophy	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
orly is a building located in the city paris	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
harrison is a musician who plays the guitar	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
austin_children_museum is a museum in the city austin	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
larvae is an invertebrate animal that feeds on seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	99.0
baldwin_lake is a lake in the state or province michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0