The Hegel Test

To become able to test whether machines in fact have human-like or even stronger intelligence than humans, we need to compare machines with a real human highpoint of intelligence. In this article, Hegel’s philosophy is proposed as such a testing criterion, and a test is presented grounded in his dialectical philosophy of negativity, recognition, and labor. Earlier tests have arguably set their criteria too low, thus only being able to detect and examine narrow regions of cognitive abilities. They are therefore only limitedly suited to make judgments on machines’ possible strong AI. In addition, many theories on machine intelligence lack a systematic concept of thinking and intelligence and hence leave the testing of machines with an uncertain ground. With the Hegel test, this article formulates an adequate standard for machines to aim at in order to become human-like cognitively and existentially and subsequently move further towards the greater goal of superintelligence.