Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples.

My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.

The sense in which an automatic door 'understands instructions' from its photoelectric cell is not at all the sense in which I understand English.

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.