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There's nothing wrong with (and in fact much to be said in favor of) a "no politics" rule. When I was growing up it was common advice to not discuss politics/religion in mixed company. At one point I thought that was stupid fuddy-duddy advice, because people are adults and can act reasonably even if they disagree. But as I get older, I realize that I was wrong: people really, really can't control their emotions when politics comes up and it gets ugly. Turns out that the older generation was correct, and you really shouldn't talk politics in mixed company.

Obviously in this specific case the user isn't trying to talk politics, but the rule isn't dystopian in and of itself. It's simply a reflection of human nature, and that someone at Google knows it's going to be a lot of trouble for no gain if the bot starts to get into politics with users.

As an outsider's perspective: This aspect of American culture seems self-reinforcing.

It's not like things can't get heated when people in much of the rest of the world discuss politics.

But if the subject isn't entirely verboten, adults will have some practice in agreeing to disagree, and moving on.

With AI this particular cultural export has gone from a quaint oddity, to something that, as a practical matter, can be really annoying sometimes.

It's challenging because one person's "politics" is another person's "my extended family is being actively slaughtered in the middle east, how can I think or talk about anything else." Is the person wrong for that? The line for what is and isn't politics is incredibly blurry and is almost always drawn on the side of whoever already has the most privilege

Will people really agree to disagree and move on, though? That certainly hasn't been my experience. Over time I have found that some people can do that. For example, my wife and I actually very rarely agree on political matters, but when we do discuss them I know that neither of us will belittle the other or walk away thinking the other is a horrible monster. But that's rare in my experience. So I only talk politics IRL with people who I know have that ability, and it takes time to feel out who can and can't be trusted to do that. Thus, I don't talk politics in mixed company.

I also think another aspect of the "no politics" rule which is important is that it attempts to preserve spaces where people can just enjoy things. People need to escape from politics and just enjoy the good things in life together. This is important for personal mental health but also social cohesion, as it's extremely difficult to have positive relationships with those you only ever argue politics with. If we don't have spaces which enforce a no politics rule, you can't ever unplug from the madness and that isn't good.

I don't know, I compulsively read Wikivoyage pages and pretty much every page I read says "don't talk politics with the locals".

I've actually travelled a lot (ground truthing pre WGS84 map datums and geophysical exploration) and both things can be true;

* locals everywhere discuss politics between themselves, many are able to discuss politics 'reasonably' but things can and do get heated, AND

* it's good advice as a traveller to not get drawn into political discussions with locals. Listen by all means, going further can be a bad move.

I recall a radiometric survey in Nor'Western India when an underground mini nuke was detonated near our aircraft .. that got rather tense, particularly when the others were detonated and Pakistan responded.

Not a good time to discuss where the border ran.

That would still be politics, yes. What would be the benefit of discussing it at work? The particular example you give is one which is especially divisive. If someone feels emotionally affected by an issue to the point where they cannot focus on work they should take a leave of absence.

It’s not just the US, no-one talked about politics or religion at work in the UK twenty years ago either

It's called being an understanding human. Unless you limit the topics to the weather and definitely not in the changing climate style, you will talk about real life quite often. And someone's real life may be a school dropoff one day and a grenade landing on their brother digging trenches in Ukraine the day after. If you hard nope out of tougher subjects, they're unlikely to talk much to you afterwards.

Random people aren't your therapist or owe you understanding whatever trauma you pull out of your hat.

If you're unable to focus at work because of some personal trauma, then the best thing to do at most companies is talk to your line manager about it to explain the situation. That's entirely reasonable and I would think that most people will respond empathetically in that situation.

I don't think that's typically what is meant when discussing 'leaving politics out of work' though.

Ok, but it does make for poor dinner party conversation.

There's a big difference between "no politics" and "no party politics". If it involves people, it involves politics! But it's only party politics if it's discussion that references (possibly very obliquely) a political party.

It's too common that people say "politics" when they mean "party politics", and I know that's not a battle I'm going to win. But it's still necessary to remember that a strict rule of "no politics" is an oxymoron, being itself inherently political.

Not sure where you got the "unable to focus at work" part from. It's not about anything affecting work, just normal conversation.

You could also argue that politics can't be discussed civally in normal conversations because there is a rule not to do it and Noone has the experience. If we all grew up in a environment where people civally discussed politics we might be able to do it. It really wasn't that long ago when mitt Romney defended Obama on stage as a good, honest family man, as impossible to imagine as that is today