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
new_south_wales_workers is a trade union	1111	06-jul-2018	93.4
porcine_circovirus_type is a virus	1111	06-jul-2018	95.2
antiques_clock is an item found on a wall	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
charge_device is a weapon	1111	06-jul-2018	95.9
diversional_activities is a hobby	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
public_affairs is an academic program at the university college	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
jeep makes the automobile jeeps	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
spiders is called black_widow_spiders	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
kvii is a TV affiliate of the network abc_news	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
spiders is an arthropod as well as recluse_spider also is	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0