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
true_square is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	93.6
horatius_at_the_bridge is a bridge	1111	06-jul-2018	97.4
agency_report is a physical characteristic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
salinicoccus_luteus is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
beatrix_potter is a European person	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
amy has husband john	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9
nissan makes the automobile xterra	1114	25-aug-2018	99.2
the coach andrew_raycroft won the trophy or tournament division	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
scorpions is an arthropod as well as spiders also is	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
intc is a company also known as wal_mart_stores	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0