The main benefit to society of using artists is to fire up curiosity, and inspire children to study science, to become scientists and engineers. The same goes for science fiction novels, toys and games that lead to chemistry sets and so on.
If you know people in these fields you know many were inspired this way as kids, intriguing them and entertaining them long enough to leading them into reading more fact-based material along with the entertainment as they grew up until as adults they are digging into dry scientific journals and serious experiments and actually loving it.
That is an excellent narrative.
Lol.