About 70,000–100,000 years ago, there was a cognitive revolution in the brain, transforming the behaviour of Homo Sapiens such that today we dominate the planet. Two new circuits in the human brain had evolved: The Systemizing Mechanism allowed our species alone to search for if-and-then patterns in the world, enabling generative invention; and the Empathy Circuit allowed our species alone to imagine the thoughts and feelings of others, enabling complex social interaction, including deception and self-reflection. New evidence reveals the link between the autistic mind and the capacity for invention. Society owes a huge debt to autistic people for the contribution that their genes have played in driving the evolution of human progress, and yet autistic people are excluded from society. It’s time to redress this.