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
audio_comments is software used by machine-learning scientists	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
denture_creams is a personal care product	1111	06-jul-2018	98.8
david_haysom is a chef	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
judge_rivkin_carothers is a judge	1111	06-jul-2018	96.3
information_science is an area of study within the field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
george_w is a U.S. politician who is a member of the political group house	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
tub is often found in n4_piece_bath	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
pat_fitzgerald coaches the team northwestern	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
theodore_roosevelt is a politician who holds the office of president	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
community_arts is an academic program at the university college	1111	06-jul-2018	96.9