Bloomberg Societe Generale SA reported fourth-quarter profit that exceeded estimates, helped by a surprise jump in earnings from French consumer banking. The lender announced plans for an initial public offering of its car-leasing business. Net income was 390 million euros ($417 million), down 41 percent from a year earlier but above the 315 million-euro average estimate of seven analysts …

  Bloomberg When our robot overlords arrive, will they decide to kill us or cooperate with us? New research from DeepMind, Alphabet Inc.’s London-based artificial intelligence unit could ultimately shed light on this fundamental question. They have been investigating the conditions in which reward-optimizing beings, whether human or robot, would chose to cooperate, rather than compete. The answer could have …

  Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. will help cloud customers fend off patent lawsuits and expand coverage of related litigation costs, seeking to distinguish its services from rivals in the fast-growing market for internet-based computing. As more companies host their applications and services on Microsoft’s Azure and other cloud providers, they are increasingly becoming the target of lawsuits from companies seeking to …