system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does a computer know how to interpret binary?

How does the computer know what the binary represents, such as an image/text/audio/etc. as many of these have overlapping binary codes?
gpt
It does not. 

At the hardware level, the computer has no idea if a series of bits form an ASCII character, a UTF character, a number, a pixel, a signal level, an instruction code or any other type of data. They're just binary digits that the CPU manipulates as it executes instructions.

The program code ("software") running on the computer gives meaning to those bits from the user perspective, as defined by the programmer. The computer has various components for graphics, sound etc. that can interpret bits appropriately, but the software is 100% responsible for which bits go where.

If there is an error in the program that makes the CPU try to execute, say, image data as instruction codes, it will merrily try to do so. If the image was specially crafted to actually contain a valid set of instructions, the CPU could even succeed rather than just perform nonsensical operations until an error occurs.