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
meal_moths is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
original_front_door is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
apopka is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
mesothelioma_cancer_mesothelioma_cancer is a disease	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
holdem_poker_download is a cardgame	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
larger_animals is an animal that is a kind of goats	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
jamey_carroll is an athlete that flied out to position center	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
martina_hingis is an athlete who beat jana_novotna	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
richard_pryor is a person who died at the age of 65	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
short_skirts is a clothing item to go with shirts	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0