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
whitish_light is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	96.7
makeshift_operating_table is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	94.5
bythograeidae is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	99.4
the_friend is a publication	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
dusky_arboreal_rice_rat is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
n18 is the number of people killed in the event n2007_zahedan_bombings	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
los_angeles_ca is a city located in the country usa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
triangle has shape faces	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
neurontin is a drug worked on by pfizer	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
fresno is the home city of the sports team california_state_university	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2