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
n2008_beijing_olympic is a sporting event	1112	24-jul-2018	94.7
sauvignon_blanc_and_semillon is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
certain_criminal_offences ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
joints is a bone	1111	06-jul-2018	91.0
ebay__com is a website	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ford is a company that produces tempo	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
communities is a generalization of member	1114	25-aug-2018	99.8
triangle has shape peak	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
crickets is a type of insects	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
children is an animal that can develop cancer_diagnosis	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9