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
international_stores is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
zoo_de_lourosa is a zoo	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ionotropic_glutamate_receptor is a protein	1111	06-jul-2018	90.4
light_gray is a color	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
mitch_stetter is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
majestic_sierra_nevada is a mountain in the state or province california	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
bed is often found in foot_unit	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
cardinals_27_23 is a sports team that plays in the league nfl	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
jarvis_cocker is a musician who is part of pulp	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
shellfish is a fish that can be served with the food sauce in a meal (or dish)	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0