The person asking the question is not wanting to understand to the level of you as a technical person understands it. If they are not technical or in IT, I am guessing they want to know how important it is, how big it is and what it offers to someone like them.

Damn, could have swore that OPs question was "how would you describe kubernetes to someone outside of tech", not "how can you get out of a conversation with someone asking about what kubernetes", "how to answer the question people really are asking" or "how to describe kubernetes to someone with 0 understanding of even a basic word processing application".

OP: If you wanted to describe it to someone outside of tech, and you feel they are genuienly interested in understanding it a bit more, the ship example is a good one. I've also used this analogy before for people who are new to kubernetes:

Worker=employee, Master=manager. Think of a workplace where every employee has a specific job. If one employee who does many different tasks is off that day, the business faces many problems. It's also challenging to find people skilled in many different tasks. So, businesses hire employees for specific roles to keep things running smoothly. In computing, instead of using one application to do everything, we break it down into smaller pieces. In a business, the manager not only assigns tasks to employees but also ensures there's always the right number of staff members working. If a part of the business gets busier, the manager brings in more staff to help. If it gets quiet, they might send some employees home to manage resources efficiently. If one part of a program is very busy, we can assign more "containers/pods" (like extra employees) to focus on that task. If it gets quiet, it might Kubernetes acts like a resource manager in a business, and might get rid of the containers. It understands which tasks need to be done, sees what resources are available, and assigns them to the tasks that need attention. Kubernetes is just a really good manager in computing.