"The system would have 'read' many, many natural language texts -- books, reference materials, all kinds of information -- and tried to analyze and organize that information in such a way that it can see the meaning of the question and try to figure out what are likely answers," Ferrucci explains.

Watson doesn't stop with knowledge, though: Like a person -- particularly one competing on "Jeopardy" -- it has to be able to assess how confident it is with its answer. If it buzzes in with some iffy information, it could suffer some serious point losses.

"Determining the confidence is a really big part of the challenge," Ferrucci says. "Humans can know what they know very rapidly. This is something the Watson computer is working very hard to do."

A computer with confidence? Sheesh...that's a real blow to the ol' self-esteem.