Generative - degenerating art

We're talking about our art being self-organizing versus degenerating. It is ironic that the language we use gets us stuck going nowhere. Generative art implies that it keeps changing and building, but with something that continues changing, it degenerates over time. Everything crumbles and destroys itself, even while it may be 'improving' and becoming better. So we have the words Generative and Degeneration forced on each other. By denotation, this are antonyms. So why do they go hand and hand?
And if anything is generative and is always degenerating, then how much of what we actually do falls under that category?
Because humans will not bend to your will. Especially if you do not tell them what your will is. So when a system is based on human interaction, and it does not do what we want, there's no surprise. But when we are expecting a result, and trying our damnedest to get that result, we aren't actually letting the system go. We aren't letting the human interaction go where it wants to go -we are trying to put the project into a box. Which doesn't seem that it is generative, or degenerating. We are so trained to make art that goes on display in some form or another, and that has a specific time limit that it is supposed to exist in, and Should Not Change. So we keep trying to break free of that training, while at the same time trying to keep within our comfort zone, even subconsciously, and that pushes us farther away from our goal, if our goal is generative.
Or maybe we are trying too hard. Just let it happen how it wants to. But if we aren't trying hard enough, then we aren't creating art, right?

Seems like an endless loop we're stuck in. We can't create new art, because we are so focused on creating something new. And that intensity on creation puts us a little farther away from actually making something. Or maybe that's just my headspace.