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
pigmy_splayfoot_salamander is an amphibian	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
willard_van_orman_quine is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rice_bowl is an item found in the kitchen	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
chromophil_cells is a type of biological cell	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
asbestos_safety_shoes is a kind of clothing	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
stuart_hamm is a musician who plays the bass	1114	25-aug-2018	99.7
national is a bank that bought dsp_merrill_lynch	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
mia is an athlete who beat williams	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
john_milius is a person who has attended the school usc	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
moyer is a person who has age nonneginteger:n46	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0