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
n10_13 is a dataset used within the scientific field of machine learning	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
bunker_c_fuel is a refinery product	1112	24-jul-2018	95.9
pseudoalteromonas_phenolica is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
christian_legal_society is a non-profit organization	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
gray_leaf_eared_mouse is a mammal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
crows is an animal that eats seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
switzerland_switzerland is a country also known as china	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
raptors is a sports team that plays against cavaliers	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
willie_brown is the leader of the city san_francisco	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
dylan is a hotel in the city new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.1