A closer look
If your office elevator makes you tap your floor number before you get in, you are riding inside a vertical algorithm. Destination control systems group passengers going to similar floors into the same car, slashing wait times and energy use in tall buildings. Instead of everyone crowding into the first open door and then stopping at every level, the software predicts traffic patterns by time of day and learns from historical data. It might quietly prioritise heavily used floors at certain hours or hold a car for a surge of people leaving a meeting. The downside is that you lose the simple social ritual of pressing a button once you are inside; changing your mind mid ride is harder. These systems show how even something as mundane as an elevator becomes a data problem once buildings grow past a certain height. Your commute is being optimised whether you notice or not.
