There was one point where he actually introduced a concept ("aiming for the target") which I had *not* mentioned, which surprised me and suggested that the AI had genuinely managed to understand the question

Or at least come to *an* understanding, if not necessarily the same understanding you had -- looking at the wording of the question and answer, I suspect Danik might have been interpreting "a shot from the bows" as something closer to Robin Hood than The Sea Hawk.