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- Embed this noticeThe year is 2064. Software developers are smarter than ever. AI has gained the ability to think originally, and mind-reading technology is slowly rolling out. One part of programming, though, remains under-researched and broken.
Shuffling.
It is 2064, and developers still cannot shuffle correctly.
Music shuffling algorithms are 'personalized' to the end user, and end up playing the same songs repeatedly. All games are now played digitally, and board games have been rendered totally obsolete. This has widely been regarded as a mistake. Card decks cannot be shuffled right, and players in certain positions have up to a 30% higher chance of winning the game. Photo frames, too, have been replaced with shuffling photo frames. These photo frames only shuffle ten out of the thousands of photos they've been asked to shuffle, hiding the remaining ones.
There are myths that programmers used to know how to shuffle. Compared to the achievements of today, it seems like it should be a relatively easy task. Some programmers, derogatorily referred to as "out of touch", claim that it only takes a function or two to shuffle correctly. But modern researchers believe that it is much harder than this, needing weeks upon weeks to even begin to implement, and needing teams of dozens of programmers. All current shuffling algorithms are only poor imitations of shuffling simply because the correct amount of resources cannot be allocated to it.
Users have rarely, if ever, experienced a proper shuffle by this point, so this does not bother them. Some remember a time where shuffle worked just fine, but they think that they must have made this up. It is, of course, too difficult to truly shuffle.
Perhaps this lost skill will be regained eventually, but experts predict that it will take at least another decade.