I have an idea, I just need help with minor things.

I've been thinking about making a project for fun based on "AI". I would like to make a program that can have a conversation or answer questions with a user.

My idea is using a database, it will record all questions asked by users, and also record replies to them if it doesn't know the answer. The Database will look like this.

-User says this for the first time
|
|--- Answer from other users that I learnt
|--- Answer 2 from other users that I learnt
|--- Answer 3 from other users that I learnt
-User says this for the first time
|
|--- Answer from other users that I learnt
|--- Answer 2 from other users that I learnt

Etc..

If a user asks a question that the program hasn't learnt yet, the program will record it, and then ask a different user for his answer and record that also. If a user has already asked this and the program has an answer, then it will display the answer.

This isn't really AI but it's an idea that I will try to develop. I'd appreciate it if you would help me with by giving me ideas to improve this.

Be sure to build in variations of common sayings, like "Hello", "Good Morning", "What's up?", "What time is it?", etc.

um.... be sure to deal with sentence like :
"hey buddy, how are you?"
and
"hey, how are ya buddy?"

Oh yeah, thanks. I almost forgot about those! Those should be no problem!

Anything else I should look out for?

Here's a programming tip: I'm sure you already know this, but you could use the Like operator to scan for words, e.g:

Code:

---

If MySentence Like "*apples*" Then Answer = "Speaking of apples..."

---

Yeah, thanx even though I already knew that. One question though, what's the difference between "Like" and "inStr"?

Like does pattern matching and is slow whereas InStr finds the location of one string inside another (a bit faster).

Oh ok. I don't know what else I should add to this project. I want it to be great. Maybe it'll be sooooo great that it'll replace my actual friends. LOL