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
radios_cool_alarm_clocks is an item often found in a bedroom	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
african_forest_flycatcher is an animal	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
shirt_front is a kind of clothing	1111	06-jul-2018	92.9
n1889___1982 is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
paterson is a city	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
joseph_conrad wrote the book lord_jim	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
floor a muscle located in bodypart bare_feet	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
european_airports is a generalization of london_gatwick	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
white_t_shirts is a clothing item to go with pants	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
rome is a city located in the geopolitical location italy	1112	24-jul-2018	99.9