I often get the impression that the human agent is perceived as a separate entity from nature. Possibly our second-level cognition plays a large division between humans and the animal kingdom but in the ultimate scheme, everything is formed with the elements of nature; the universe. Throughout history, there have been several periods where humans feared technology because it was seen as a threat to their existence which is not a completely irrational concern but the real danger lies in the dismissal of ideas that can better sustain the human race. A recent example is the late 1900's where along with the technological explosion, robots were thought to be innately evil creations. I think a large part of this is spurred by the novels of Hollywood movies. Afterall, this was the theme of popular science fiction films like Terminator and more recently, iRobot. It is how we choose to utilize technology that makes the difference.
The function is the use of tools while the variables are the tools itself. When a human uses a robotic arm to operate brain surgery to save a patient's life, the function is no different from a monkey's use of a rock to crack a nutshell, a beaver's use of branches to build his home or