I've seen this stance gaining popularity in recent years among politically correct autistic people online - somehow labeling them as lacking in social skills is wrong, yet they should be labeled as inherently gifted.

Let me ask this question in the most neutral way possible: Is not being able to pick up on sarcasm, not being to operate in loud environments, having difficulty asking for a date, not being able to recognize faces, not picking up on emotions and social cues, and getting easily annoyed the next step in human evolution?

Fucking of course not! 

Someone with severe autism might not even pick up on the sarcasm of me acting like I was going to ask that question in a non-biased way.

Look, there are some gifted autistic people out there. Some of them may have very desirable traits like high intelligence and empathy. However, it's not the autism that causes that. They would still be better off if they had high intelligence/empathy and good social skills. Social skills can be learned, autists just start off at a disadvantage compared other people. We all have skills to work on, and the autistic community would be better off embrace the chance to learn, instead of pretending they are perfect, or even better than others.

Here is a guide to the numerous harmful symptoms of autism: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/symptoms-of-autism#1

This article was inspired by this mess:

https://medium.com/social-club/autism-the-next-step-in-human-evolution-c22d8d9648be