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
honeylocust_pod_gall_midge is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
heavy_equipment_mechanic is a profession	1111	06-jul-2018	98.7
middlefield_road is a street	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lexus_lx_engines is a kind of automobile engine	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
square_alarm_clock is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
microsoft is headquartered in the state or province washington	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
raymond_james is the home venue for the sports team bay	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
sweats is a clothing item to go with sweater	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
english is a language used in the university british_council	1113	15-aug-2018	96.9
hard is a generalization of rock	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8