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
battle_of_carlow is a military conflict	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
cedar_ridge_area is a monument	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
donald_j__ross coaches a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	99.0
guelma is a geopolitical entity that is a location	1111	06-jul-2018	92.0
houston_chamber_orchestra is a musician	1111	06-jul-2018	92.4
weevils is an invertebrate animal that feeds on seeds	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
delmonico_s_restaurant is a restaurant in the city los_angeles_ca	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
harvey is a city located in the state or province louisiana	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
spider_mites is a type of insects	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ann_brashares contributed to the creative work the_sisterhood_of_the_traveling_pants	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0