IBM's Watson supercomputer won a practice round against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter and raised a lot of questions about the capabilities of artificial intelligence.

Watson, a four-year effort by IBM, was quicker on the draw, didn't fall prey to emotion and had a voice that could be confused for wayward computer Hal 9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. For IBM, Watson is about tackling verticals and bringing hardware and analytics to the fore.

As one of the dozens of humans watching this practice round, I can't deny I was a bit squeamish about seeing a supercomputer wing it, adapt and show off its artificial intelligence. Is this thing going to be Skynet? That's a bit farfetched---today IBM is thinking health care will make the most use of Watson---but a supercomputer that has self-awareness and can learn gives this human pause. David Ferrucci, principal investigator of Watson DeepQA technology, said Watson can conduct self-assessments and learn.

IBM's Watson gets its Jeopardy warm-up

Naturally Ferrucci was asked about whether Watson had the risk of Hal 9000. "That's science fiction," said Ferrucci. "We're not even close to that." Ferrucci, however, did add that Watson is more like the computer on Star Trek than Hal.

Here's a look at the practice rounds. Apologies in advance for the video quality.

When the duel was finished, Watson won the round with $4,400, Jennings had $3,400 with Rutter bringing in $1,200.

IBM execs, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, Rutter and Jennings fielded questions after the round. Among the key points: