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
american_classic_recordings is a record label	1111	06-jul-2018	98.4
national_rural_letter_carriers_association is a professional organization	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
willis_brown is an Asian person	1111	06-jul-2018	91.2
b__1969 is a year	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
silver_shadow is a color	1111	06-jul-2018	99.9
roof is a building feature made from the building material steel	1115	03-sep-2018	92.7
swords is a type of weapon produced in china	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
chevrolet is a specific automobile maker dealer in charlotte	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
michelle_obama and barack_obama are family members	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
chris_martin is a musician who plays the piano	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2