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
andrea_briosco is an architect	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
harry_s__truman is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
pallidectomy_pancolectomy is a medical procedure	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
open_doors is an item often found in a hallway	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
n2012_ncaa_tournament is a sports game	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
arthur_miller wrote the book death_of_a_salesman	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
national is a bank that bought barclays_bank_plc	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
bobcats is a sports team that plays against magic	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
spiders is an animal that is a kind of black_widow	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
citibank is a bank in hong_kong	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0