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
giant_salamanders is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bomb_fragments is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
n100___acid_free_paper is an office supply	1112	24-jul-2018	94.2
plastic_containers is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
bath_tap_or_faucet_or_sanitary_ware_fittings is an item often found in a bathroom	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
felipe_alou is the parent of moises_alou	1115	03-sep-2018	98.4
chen is a person who belongs to the organization youtube	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
george_allen is related to university_of_michigan	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
california is a state that is bordered by the state baja_california	1113	15-aug-2018	98.4
human_powered_data_management occurrs in the building gates___hillman_centers	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0