I don't know how you're measuring efficiency, but a heat pump with greater than 100% efficiency lets you build a perpetual motion machine. That's not possible.
If the art doesn't look good by whatever standards you have, then it doesn't look good. Whether it's not-good AI-generated or not-good human-generated doesn't matter.
Just look at the picture, and if you like it then like it. This moral panic about Abominable Intelligence's supposedly soulless touch is pointless.
There are some cities that do things a third way; they have a centralized facility that burns the gas (or other fuels) to generate electricity, and then also pipe the heat out to the city in the form of heated water or steam running through insulated underground pipes. Buildings tap into those pipes and run it through radiators. That has the potential to be even more efficient because you're using what would otherwise be "waste" heat, but it depends on a relatively compact city to avoid losing too much heat while sending it through the pipes. I understand this is not uncommon in Eastern European and Russian cities. I'm not familiar with the details, though, so if you want to know more about this I'd recommend Googling around a bit.
I don't self-inflict it on myself, because when I see a piece of art that looks really neat I go "ooh, that looks really neat" rather than "wait, I need to dig around to find out whether I'm supposed to like this or not."
People have to actively choose to make themselves miserable in the way this comic depicts. That's what I mean when I say it's self-inflicted.
Oh, probably because it's cheaper and more efficient.
If you wanted to use the gas in a gas power plant to produce electricity to run an electric heater, there's a bunch of steps where energy gets lost. The turbine and generator isn't 100% efficient and the transformers and transmission wires lose energy along the way to your house. Whereas burning something directly for heat is nearly 100% efficient, the only waste is whatever heat gets carried away by the exhaust. Which isn't much with a modern high-efficiency furnace. I've got one of those and every once in a while I knock icicles off of the exhaust vent outside when I pass it. They use countercurrent exchange to keep all the heat inside the house.
Yet, exceedingly rare to see fires from this
You just answered your own question. The techniques for running gas lines into houses and hooking them up to furnaces are very refined at this point, it can be done safely.
A little plastic fiber isn't toxic waste. You are applying absolutely ridiculous standards.
It's self-inflicted.
I love how sci-fi this sounds. Just need mention of verteron particles thrown in there somewhere.
On the one hand not fond of the CCP, and this is a step toward making Taiwan more "safely" invadeable.
On the other hand not fond of the United States throwing its weight around like it's in charge of the world and not fond of monopolies in general.
So hard to settle on a reaction for this.
A rare but welcome win for common sense comedy appreciation.