| Posted: 24 September 2026 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | 6
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Yesterday I posted a comment in the "FIFA Peace Prize" thread in which I wrote this (hope the formatting to convey the quote doesn't mess everything up):
When Dark Knight came out, an element of the movie was that Lucius Fox was going to quit over the existence of Batman’s cell-phone centered mass surveillance system. By the time Brand New Day came out, literally nobody batted an eye at Spider-Man’s cell-phone centered mass surveillance system. Ironic, seeing as how in real life a frog will not actually tolerate a slowly boiling pot.
I'm always nervous about "irony" since it's so often used incorrectly. So I decided to ask Gemini if I had used it right. Gemini said it wasn't used correctly but for reasons that confused me, which resulted in a fairly lengthy back-and-forth with Gemini because I believe it missed the original analogy.
At one point, Gemini informed me that it wasn't a proper use of "ironic" and provided the following example as being a correct: "Irony would require people to a actively demand privacy while simultaneously installing surveillance systems themselves."
I pointed out to Gemini that this actually occurs. People have worry about a loss of privacy and of being widely surveilled, but they do buy smart phones that track their every movement and interaction, and install apps onto those phones that explicitly gather huge troves of data about them.
Gemini the backtracked and told me that "Irony would require people to an actively demand privacy while simultaneously installing surveillance systems themselves." is not a proper example of irony.
In the final exchange, I asked Gemini if Gemini providing an incorrect example of irony meets the definition of irony, and received an affirmative - "Yes, that fits the definition of situational irony."
I'm still not 100% sure if I used "ironic" appropriately in my original comment/example, but I am leaning towards 100% certain that Gemini can't be trusted as a source on the meaning of, and examples of "ironic."
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