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
tri_state_university is a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
herding is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
dearborn_hotels is a park	1111	06-jul-2018	90.4
radio_phonograph is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
dermoidectomy_diaphysectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
irondequoit_bay is a lake in the state or province ontario	1116	12-sep-2018	99.9
joseph_conrad contributed to the creative work nostromo	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hot_water is often found in private_bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
mauna_kea is a mountain in the state or province hawaii	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
carl_crawford plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2