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I have zero doubt that people like Musk who apparently has Asperger syndrome have existed aplenty throughout history and some obsessive scientists and others were like that. Rather than new homo sapiens this is a part of humanity that has already existed. Additionally some of those traits fit more with male brain characteristics.
At some point you got a serious disease that seriously ruins people's ability to live an independent life. So there is a spectrum that is broadly defined, and can include traits that can help society and can include trade offs among the people who possess them, that in addition to detrimental socially, can lead to maybe being more clear sighted or more willing to work on a particular field. But certainly you are going to find high functioning autists who underperform in life and would be better off if they weren't autistic.
I would definitely change the autism that makes it impossible for people to live an independent life, but it is knocking massive Chesterton fence and also relates to feminization of society and the devaluing male brain (i.e nerds who are of course much more men is an example of this), to say that we would be better off if anyone who might fit in the broad categories, would be different.
It is possible that some sort of contaminants in modernity leads to more autism whether microplastics or something else. It could also be related to people having children at later ages which leads to more mutational load.
But the issue of the autism spectrum is more about classifying behaviors and people that in past ages wouldn't get a label. There is in fact a negative side to people who have those behaviors that get a label but it can have positive side as well, at least when it comes to uncovering truths of the world, and a subset of the people involved. Not always of course. The autistic trans people aren't uncovering a higher truth. Was the childless obsessive Newton, someone who today his behaviors might get him to fit somewhere on the autism spectrum? Perhaps. It isn't wrong that such behaviors can be identified but there is value especially who care about things and issues over general socialization, and of course those who combine both and could be discouraged if such pursuits are booed as autistic behavior which is used in a negative sense. It isn't wrong though that people who fit too much on the spectrum face difficulties.
I think some of the anxieties relating to this has to do with also the changes of modernity relating to more social isolation and the rise of feminism and decline of assumed monogamy as a default. When monogamy, that is the expectation of marriage and family formation was more of the default expectation, then a greater subset of men and even women who are bellow a certain threshold of extroversion and social skills had families with less difficulties than the same people encounter today where early marriage is less the default and there is more social isolation. This wasn't only related to arranged marriage but also people in church, relatives and friends doing match making for the sake of marriage and encouraging dates, that has also declined as a practice. So some of these people became more socially skilled due to the expectation of getting married under this system while today might be classified as having more autistic traits and probably are indeed higher on introversion. But because of the decline of social institutions and people spending more time with screens and isolated, we have these people living more isolated lives than if society was arranged in a different manner.
So it is complicated when it comes to the broad spectrum of so called labeled autism and what are labeled as autistic traits, and even the appropriateness of such labeling, while it is black and white simple that it would be better if they were different when it comes to people who can't live an independent life and aren't high functioning.
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