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
hoof_beats is a publication	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
flocking is a physical action	1111	06-jul-2018	95.8
shothole_borers is an arthropod	1111	06-jul-2018	92.6
tour_international is a sports race	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
coffee___cake is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	92.6
science is an academic program at the university george_washington_university__s_elliott_school	1114	25-aug-2018	93.8
english is a language used in the university byu	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
the sport baseball was played at n1959_world_series	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
charlotte_amalie is the capital city of the country u_s_	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
ford is a company that produces freestyle	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0