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
criminal_sexual_offenses ia a crime or charge	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
breakfast_chocolate is a kind of candy	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
topsail_beach_north_carolina is a beach	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
infectious_viral_infection is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
jerry_creek is a river	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
super_bowl_xliv_the_indianapolis_colts is a sports team that played in games	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
seattle_seahawks_21_10 is an organization also known as steelers	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
cuernavaca is a city located in the country mexico	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
house is a subpart of supply	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
crustaceans is a type of invertebrates	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0