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
michael_b__spring is an author in the scientific field of machine learning	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
chemistry_chemistry is an academic field	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
ruins_of_saint_paul_s_cathedral is a place of worship	1112	24-jul-2018	99.8
wide_circles is a geometric shape	1111	06-jul-2018	97.6
peugeot_307_2_0i_16v_hdi_136 is a kind of vehicle	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
mammals is a type of vertebrates	1115	03-sep-2018	99.2
black_pepper is an agricultural product that is usually cooked with onions	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
patrick_swayze starred in the movie ghost	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
biden is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician barack_obama	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0
dan is a person who graduated from the university michigan_state_university	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0