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
the_slim_shady_show is a TV show	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
_5_2 is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
sphingomonas_fennica is a bacterium	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
supplemental_dental_insurance is an economic sector	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
causes_enlarged_inguinal_lymph_nodes is a lymph node	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
state_university is an organization also known as north_texas_state	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
thurman_thomas plays the athletic team position running_back	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
the companies fastcompany and journal compete with eachother	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
public_relations is a type of science	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
grizzly_discovery_center is an aquarium in the city west_yellowstone	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0