Urban Legends: Humans Outsmarting Machines Or How To Commandeer An Elevator

The New Yorker’s Nick Paumgarten investigates whether one can really override an elevator:

Supposedly, if an elevator passenger simultaneously presses the “door close” button and the button for the floor he is trying to reach, he can override the requests of other passengers and of people waiting for the elevator on other floors. The elevator shifts into express mode, racing directly to the floor of his choosing—becoming, in essence, a private lift. Apparently (that is, according to Internet chatter and what you might call secondhand anecdotal evidence), people (pizza men, college students, hotel guests) have been doing this for years, which might explain why the rest of us have occasionally had the feeling that elevators were passing us by.

Does it work? Apparently it does at Conde Nast:

A desultory last-ditch attempt to hijack the ride up failed, but at lunchtime, just for kicks, the overrider, boarding a downbound elevator occupied by three other passengers, who had pressed a couple of buttons, tried again, pressing “door close” and “16.” The illuminated buttons all went dark. For a few seconds, the elevator didn’t move. It had been reset. It was there for the taking, but, amid hijacker indecision, the elevator took control of itself, and started going up instead of down.

The passengers were alarmed. “What’s going on? Are we going up?”

“Don’t worry,” they were told. “This is research.”

“How about doing it after hours?” one said.

“I’m really hungry,” another said.

“Research?” said a third. “O.K., I’m doing research on breasts. Take off your shirts.”

More passengers boarded on twenty-three. Buttons were pressed, but the overrider struck again, and again the panel went blank. The maneuver was executed a few more times, until mutiny seemed imminent. (“I want to get off right now.”)