With Great Tech Comes Great Responsibility
By Owen Purcell
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience is a short story written by Rebecca Roanhorse. The premise of the story is a futuristic virtual reality entertainment experience where tourists come to experience "Vision Quest", which is essentially just the virtual reality version of a stereotypical Indian movie from 1940s. The story follows Jesse, who is actually Native American but pretends to be "the right kind of Indian" for his job working at the virtual reality company.
In the beginning of the story Jesse attempts to offer his costumers a "Custer's Last Stand special," which he plans to make authentic for guests who want to see the real history of Native Americans. None of the guests choose to take him up on this. This is the first sign in this story that points to a theme that we have observed in other pieces of media such as "WestWorld." This theme is the idea that humans generally choose entertainment and pleasure above all else. Even if a new technology has the capability of offering meaningful educational or life experiences, people will use it to gratify their own desires instead. In the short story, Jesse's boss decides that a sexual virtual reality experience called "Squaw Fantasy" is a better seller than Custer's Last Stand. This brings up an important question. Are humans really able to use the technologies they create in ethical ways when there is always a temptation to do the opposite? Even the most advanced and useful technologies are essentially useless if we choose to use them irresponsibly. At the end of the story we realize that Jesse's entire life outside of the Indian VR company is also a VR experience of some kind. Another man named White Wolf moves into his house. He tells Jesse that his wife needs a real man, and that Jesse is being replaced. Jesse is suddenly ejected from the VR experience that we had assumed was his real life, and the story ends. This further illustrates the irresponsible use of technology. In the story, the VR experiences aren't only used for cheap thrills, but also to replace a person's social interactions entirely, including love and relationships.
This story is structured in such a way so that we do not know the full extent of the virtual reality technology until the final moments. This is done intentionally by the writer, to shock the reader and make them reevaluate the story and its meaning. The feeling the reader is meant to experience with this technique mirrors Jesse's own shock in the story. It seems that he did not know that his entire life was in fact a virtual illusion. Through this Roanhorse is asking us a question. Would you be able to tell the difference between real life and an experience like the one offered in the story? I expect that most of us would not. If humans are incapable of differentiating between real life and technology, we are not in a position to be creating things that blur this line. Just because we have the capability of creating something, does not mean that we should.