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
jurua_woodcreeper is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	98.3
the_motorcyclist_s_post is a political blog	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
zoo_hoyerswerda is a zoo	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
babeldaob is a geopolitical entity that is a location	1111	06-jul-2018	92.3
aluminum_acetate_dibasic is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
tampa_international_airport is a generalization of temple_of_the_reclining_buddha	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
wgbh is a TV station in the city boston	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
the sports leage nascar uses the venue bristol_motor_speedway	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
white_beans is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with peppers	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8
president_obama is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician palin	1112	24-jul-2018	99.2