I've been overestimated here.
There are 2 types of artificial intelligence, there's the one I can to and the one I can't do and you wan't to.
The sort of AI I do is where the computer's dealing with a specific proplem and you can break down the mathematics so you can give the computer an algorythm that it can follow to get the solution and appear intellegent.
The other sort is using nural net's to make the computer actually intelligent (do you remember that creatures program some time ago?) this is done by setting up a nural network and some binary data that it can set itself up with and never raise an error(ie an array representing connections between nodes) these bits of binary data are tested to see which one does the best and then the best ones are combined to make new ones, this process of evolution is then repeated until something fairly intelligent comes out the other end.
I think what your trying for is something in between, This is not my area of expertise but I would like to get into it.
If you can reccomend any books, websites etc where I can learn I would be verty interested and whould post anything I found that would be helpfull, other than that I can recommend 2 areas of mathematics, Graph theory and Computability theory, I think most of your answers would lie in there. Group theory and ring theory would help too, They're all quite nice branhces of maths in that you don't need to no much other maths to learn them. (you need to know group theory to learn ring theory and you need some basic maths to do computability theory but other than that you're ok) I you point me towards some AI basics I would be happy to do some research for you.
Neural network software for VB
Dudes,
As a geophysicist and mathematician, I use and recommend Neurosolutions V3.02. Check out www.neurosolutions.com.
I'm not on commission, I just realy like the (demo) program.
You can download a demo version from the site that includes demos. The site covers grammer applications, and neural network architecture. It uses a highly graphical interface that attracts new users and yet is powerful enough to keep experts interested. All networks can be output as VB or C dll's. Wizards help you generate NN's from scratch.
Genetica algorithms are now supported and there is an online book for beginners.
Sam, as mentioned by Paul282, Prolog is probably the language you are after for your application.
Justin.