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
tim_pond is a lake	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
observational_data is a scientific term	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
trading_investments is an economic sector	1111	06-jul-2018	93.2
arteria_rectalis_cranialis is an artery	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
cherokee_darter is a fish	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
usa is related to new_york_mets	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
bristol_zoo is a zoo in the city bristol	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
princess_street is a street in the city edinburgh	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
nan_wang is a person who has residence in the geopolitical location new_south_wales	1114	25-aug-2018	100.0
newbury is a city that lies on the river kennet	1112	24-jul-2018	93.8