The essence of the story on Watson: it beat the humans because it was faster on the trigger finger. Same story as John Henry and the steam-powered hammer. As for how it acquired its "knowledge" ... by "reading" documents ... yes, an ocean is bigger than a teacup. But water can't swim. Call me when a general-purpose machine is motivated to mull over all that knowledge and originates new, original, testable answers to long-standing questions.