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
adequate_sunlight is a perception event	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
brick_walls is something found in or on buildings	1111	06-jul-2018	98.9
the_four_knights is a musical artist	1111	06-jul-2018	99.1
brooklyn_law_school is a school	1112	24-jul-2018	96.2
pembroke_state_university is a sports team	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
engineering_projects is a subpart of water	1111	06-jul-2018	99.2
john_ford directed the movie the_searchers	1115	03-sep-2018	93.8
london_sea_life_aquarium is a zoo in the city central_london	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
dutch is the language of the country aruba	1115	03-sep-2018	96.9
new_yorker_magazine is headquartered in the city nueva_york	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0