I think he is quite a tragic character in a way. As you say, he has achieved so much success and I think that has led him to believe he is the knight in the Seventh Seal, playing chess with death. Except where the film character learned that the game could be a trick to help others Kurzweill's brought a ramshackle version of Deep Blue to the game and so determined that the statistics are on his side he's blinded to what the knight realises - the value of mortality and his own life.

I think I'm making even wilder extrapolations than even he does... but there's a point there somewhere.

There are a few that are doing really interesting research into just that, I recommend this book: Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought It goes into quite a lot of detail about trying to simulate analogy making and it is written in quite a human, personal style and studies quite beautifully simple cognitive processes. Its such a shame that people like Kurzweill get all the attention, when there are some really insightful, philosophical AI researchers out there, (such as Douglas Hofstadter).

Infidelcastrix?

Nope, far worse:

But the law was defeated in a vote and is now only 28 days (the highest in Europe).