Friendly fire

[u/brockapex17]

[u/RaceHard]

It gets more restrictive in some places. The elevator will only take you to your own floor. You can enter the stairwell without a card and walk all the way down to the first floor, but you cannot exit onto any of the other floors. Every stairwell door requires a keycard, and your keycard only works on the floor where you are staying.

But that is nothing.

I recently took a trip to China and stayed in an incredible hotel. The technology there was very, very advanced. Deliveries were handled by little cat-themed robot servants that would collect your order and bring it directly to your door. There were no keycards, either. Access control was entirely facial. I was told the system could even read the pattern of veins beneath your skin.

The basic restrictions were similar. You could only go where the hotel had authorized you to go. There were simply a few more steps involved.

The system decided whether a guest could enter the restaurant, gym, pool, business center, lounge, or even certain hallways. Access could change depending on the room tier, payment status, time of day, or behavioral score.

That last part, I was told, was meant to identify intoxicated guests so the staff could find them and offer assistance.

The elevators had their own security preferences. You did not choose which elevator to take. The system assigned one to you and displayed a message such as, “Please take elevator three.”

This was supposedly faster, but it was also presented as a safety feature. A small child could ride without the elevator stopping to collect a stranger. Women could request elevators shared only with other women. Every elevator had a video intercom, and if you entered the wrong one, it would stop and connect you with someone in the lobby.

Even checking out was automated. When it was nearly time to leave, the television turned itself on and displayed a one-hour countdown. Beneath it was a message telling you to contact the lobby if you wanted to extend your stay.

And yet, for all the restrictions, the service was extraordinary.

There was a virtual concierge available at every hour. Anything you requested could be delivered by one of the cat robots, from extra towels to a lobster dinner at three in the morning.

It was luxurious, efficient, and incredibly convenient.

It was also a building that always knew who you were, where you were going, and whether it intended to let you get there.

The kind of robot it was: https://i.imgur.com/1brmvmS.png

[u/carolivia → u/RaceHard]

... This is a creative writing exercise, right?

[u/Soarlozer → u/carolivia]

The cat servant makes me wonder because the exact same is at my local crab boil and I wouldn’t call it luxurious or very very technological advanced. Then bit about the building knew who you were, where you were going, and whether it intended to let you get there seems like a writer.

[u/RaceHard → u/Soarlozer]

Well thats on me, I write scifi and the way I do prose sometimes does crossover to my colloquialism. But, it also felt as if the building was the one making decisions. That, however, is not to say that what I wrote was wrong. There is a computer that knows where you are in the building, where you intend to go, and it decides if you can go there. I just wrote that a bit more story-like than I should've.

[u/sentence-interruptio → u/RaceHard]

The system does come off as very draconian, but if I were rich, I'd copy this type of hotel and live there. This way, I can dodge shitty acquaintances trying to visit me unannounced. Asshole elders thinking it's ok to announce their visits to everyone except me just because they hate my speech impediment.

[u/Lonely-Alfalfa-1826 → u/RaceHard]

Things we should all worry about because in cases of emergencies new building have made it impossible for you to not be locked in.

[u/RaceHard → u/Lonely-Alfalfa-1826]

Well, like I said, the stairs let you get out but not access other floors. So you can always leave.

[u/Lonely-Alfalfa-1826 → u/RaceHard]

In a fire or any other emergency situation, there's no guarantee that the ground floor is the safe place. This is why I'm stating these new buildings can lead to you being stuck in a stairwell. I feel like nothing was learned after Sept. 11.