What use does semantic technology research provide? Are the applications useful for the field of artificial intelligence as a whole, or is it just a big overhyped meme that researchers are using to justify grants and funding? The only application I can think of is dbpedia, which is linked data and... its actual applications in technology are fairly limited.

Another application I can think of is Google search engine their knowledge graphs. Basically when you google something on the right hand side of your screen you see a little box that contains some 'factual' information about what you're searching (for example a past historical figure when he lived, what his titles were etc). This commonly lacks source attribution and is a very limited application. On top of that it doesn't take into account biases, wrong information and overall if people go off of that knowledge graph they're probably deluding themselves with wrong information.

What is the opinion around here about these kind of semantic technological applications? Just a big meme to justify research grants or something that actually has practical uses outside of a few very niche cases?