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
fred_turner is a North American person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.8
narrow_footed_worm_salamander is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
haloferax_sp__25h4_2 is an archaeon	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
room_s_door is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hammock_web_spider is an arachnid	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
fresno_state is a sports team that plays the sport baseball	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
giants_stadium is the home venue for the sports team new_york_jets	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
kshb is a TV station in the city kansas_city	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
giuliani represents the region new	1115	03-sep-2018	95.7
canoeing is a sport taught in the country __america	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2