How Not to Order Water from a Robot Waiter

AI systems have gotten pretty good, by this point, at understanding us when we talk to it. That is, they've gotten pretty good at understanding what the words that we say mean. Unfortunately for AI, it's often the case in conversations between humans that we say things that we don't expect the other person to take literally, instead relying on them to infer our intentions, which may be significantly different than what the exact words that we use would suggest. For example, take the question, "Do you know what time it is?" Most of us would respond to that by communicating what time it is, but that's not what the question is asking.