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
wonderful_espresso is a beverage	1111	06-jul-2018	92.2
old_schoolhouse_restaurant is a restaurant	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
candid_portraits is form of visual art	1111	06-jul-2018	99.3
spartan_stores_inc is a retail store	1111	06-jul-2018	99.6
leafy_lettuce is a vegetable	1111	06-jul-2018	92.2
the country italy uses the currency euros	1116	12-sep-2018	99.8
george_stevens directed the movie the_diary_of_anne_frank	1115	03-sep-2018	100.0
nike terminated the employment of phil_knight	1113	15-aug-2018	100.0
day_abraham is the father of ishmael	1116	12-sep-2018	93.8
h__lee_scott is the CEO of wal_mart_stores	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0