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
newfounland is a geopolitical entity that is an organization	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
bright_nickel is a color	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
survey_students is a victim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
lachesillidae is a mollusk	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
thomas_s_giant_deer_mouse is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tea is an agricultural product produced in us	1115	03-sep-2018	99.6
jarvis_cocker is a musician who is part of pulp	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
klm is a company headquartered in the city amsterdam	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
sky_harbor_international is a building located in the city downtown_phoenix	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
creatures feeds on dragonflies	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8