ai can't have emotions.... unless they are programmed to think they do, much like we are. (apologies in advance for the neuroscience).
The frontal cortex is divided into to two areas, the left does learning, and the right performs pattern recognition (the reason for the pictures on all the iq tests). Deep within the right frontal cortex is an area called the anterior cingulate gyrus, and this fires up when we have arrived at a pattern that we recognise. The anterior cingulate gyrus is connected to the limbic system. this is the part of the brain that, when it is damaged, the patient no longer responds to emotional stimuli, and nor do they exhibit any emotions. They recognise the facial expressions of a happy/sad/scared/etc person, but they react to it as if you had told them that today is tuesday, or similar. Interestingly, these brain-damaged patients are unable to learn, as they are no longer able to access the emotional 'high' of getting the right answer.
in order for an ai to be truly sentient, they need to learn, and for that we need a limbic system to stimulate the amygdala as a reward for learning. The AI that recently played on 'jeopardy' (not the guy that was answering questions too fast, but the computer from microsoft), needs a corollary of the limbic system in order for the 'right' answer to be delivered. A computer without a limbic system corollary would have to do everything by trial and error, and would only be able to access algorithmic learning and problem solving, which would have to be repeated each time as the computer would not be able to apply the same solution if the parameters are slightly changed. When a limbic system is plugged in, heuristic reasoning can be applied, allowing us to be able to say 'oh! this is like the other scenario! I'll try that solution. Dammit, didn't work. why not? ohh, i see, this has changed. ok, then i will change *that*, and.... pewpewpewpew there, the problem is solved'.
tl;dr
just because you're an AI, doesn't mean you're brain-damaged. You (need to RP that you) have the equivalent of emotions if your character is going to learn rapidly and be any use at combat
