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
redhumped_caterpillar is an invertebrate	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
bed_ideal is a household item	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
arteria_laryngealis_inferior is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
arts_environments is a political issue	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
ichneumonidae is an insect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
viacom terminated the employment of sumner_redstone	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
n3000_ is the number of people that died in the event n1906_san_francisco_earthquake	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bernhard_schlink held the position of author	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
lake_pend_oreille is a lake in the state or province idaho	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
royals is headquartered in the state or province texas	1116	12-sep-2018	98.4