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
lighted_tree is a plant	1111	06-jul-2018	99.5
arteria_dorsalis is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
baker__s_chocolate is a kind of candy	1111	06-jul-2018	98.5
wind_tower_1 is a skyscraper	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
illinois_institute_of_technology is a school	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
south_america is a synonym for republic	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
stephen_green works for hsbc	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
president_bill_clinton is a U.S. politician who holds the office of deputy_secretary	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
bed is often found in private_cottage	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tim_brewster is related to usa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0