When you have an ai, do you program things with brute force? ie: if(_x < myx) myx--; else if(_x > myx) myx++; ? Should i put random(number) and put that in a switch statement and do things according to the result? Or do i use something like a for statement? how do you "Code" something to be "smart"?

If you are new to AI then I would recommend Programming AI by Example. It's a great book and learns basic and advance AI. Great book!

I'm a bit confused - what exactly do you mean by "brute force?"