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
n11_26_36 is a term used by physicists	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
penny_sleeper_inn is a building	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
pokerplay is a board game	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
white_eared_pocket_mouse is a vertebrate	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
inoculated_plates is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
cups is an agricultural product that contains caffeine	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
olive_oil is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with lemon	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
andres_segovia is a musician who plays the guitar	1115	03-sep-2018	98.4
joe_nathan plays for the team twins	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
dutch is the language of the country surinam	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8