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While Mycroft is billed as AI, and is certainly in that wheelhouse, I think a better way to think of it is as an vocal user interface (VUI?). So the skills mentioned here (sorting, predicting, etc.) are exactly the sort of thing you need to achieve the end result of talking to your computer for those tasks in which talking is the best and easiest interface.
Think of how swiping and pinching are generally an excellent way to manipulate images onscreen. It can be done with mouse and keyboard, but it is definitely not as easy. Voice command is going to work for things like media playback, information searches, smart-home control, and probably a million other things. It's going to be great for people with physical disabilities that make computer-use difficult, too.
Mycroft is also intended to be a locally controlled system unencumbered by the security and privacy and reliability concerns caused by corporately-owned advertising and data-mining interfaces disguised as utilitarian services. Think about Nest, the "smart home" control system that shut down its services recently, stranding people who bought their hardware with no options but to throw their hardware investments away. Any service controlled on other people's computers is primarily subject to their interests, not yours. And the people who control things like that never turn out, in the long term, to be the people that created it in all their wide-eyed naivete. You certainly will prefer all your Internet-of-Things devices to be under your own local network's control if you think about it for even a couple of minutes.
There is still a piece of Mycroft (voice-to-text) that is being run on the company's servers, but that is changing even as I write this. The creators are already committed to an open-source, self-hosted option.
Another great thing about Mycroft is that it can eventually be federated to all your chosen devices so that you will have what is basically the equivalent of your own, personal Jarvis. And no one is going to use your habits, thoughts and dreams to market to you or manipulate your choices and opinions.
If you're not technical enough to run it on a server in your home or business, there will be paid providers available -- guaranteed. And their privacy and security models will also be open to scrutiny. The safest code is open code and Mycroft is going to be a great option for those who treasure their privacy and dignity.
So even if AI never gains sentience (something I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with anyway, both on an ethical and practical level) something like Mycroft is the answer to some of our awkward interface issues, and our dangerous societal issues.
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