Irony of gender.
This book outright eliminates the question of whether gender is a meaningful distinction, since all the AIs are non-gendered essentially. Just to add another ironic twist, all the ancillaries just default to female instead of male.
Irony of identity and Artificial Intelligence.
The question of whether a computer could develop a sense of self is a fascinating question, and it's one that the novel treats by showing that through the subjective experiences of each ancillary agent, the AI does begin to operate by some sort of sense of self, although it's more complex than that. The irony here is that this development leaves the story with a distinctly humanist flavor, even though humans are minor characters at best in this future reality.
The irony of justice.
Justice is a question that goes back to the very first writers on the earth, and it's still in full display in this novel. Breq's journey concerns the development of her view for justice, allowing her to partner with one faction of the leadership and fight on a specific side of justice against an opposing view of justice. Even among absolute calculators, justice is still difficult for them to understand. This is a great irony.
The irony of pride and vengeance.
The irony of Artificial Intelligence entities choosing to remember their experiences and desire justice is strange at best. The idea that an ancillary agent for a super computer could naturally thirst for vengeance and actively seek it goes against the supposition that AI is essentially robotic, or that humans are inherently unique.
The irony of dualism and social divides.
Ironically, gender as a schism is not an issue in the story, but does that mean that there isn't a sense of dualism in the universe? By no means. Even the ancillary AIs are asked to make choices in a binary. This irony is at the center of Breq's quest.
