AI initially answered as if though I was asking how often mermaids restock their tails, and then said if I meant the tails used for swimming, they do not need to be restocked like clothes or other items

and I'm baffled by this because...obviously they do need to be restocked? And in that paragraph it even said 'they're sold by retailers' so it had figured out by that point I was referring to an item I wanted to buy?

............................ did they mean real mermaids

They started talking about mermaids, then they switched to talking about mermaid costumes sold by retailers

like

Then went on to say that mermaid costumes sold by retailers don't need to be restocked

But I think the issue is that AI doesn't really know what it's talking about from one sentence to the next

So while a human would still be talking about a mermaid tail you swim in while dressed up like a mermaid

Each sentence can be talking about something different

AI actually doesn't know what it said from one moment to the next. It would be very memory intensive to keep context around when most folks just want a one and done kind of answer.