Edit: I don't mean Marcus inspired the term differentiable programming; he inspired LeCun to emphasize the wider scope of deep learning after Marcus attacked it. In fact, LeCun liked a post on twitter rebutting Marcus' paper that also talks about differentiable programming: https://twitter.com/tdietterich/status/948811917593780225
I think LeCun doesn't want a repeat of AI winter because of exponentially rising hype and expectations out of Deep Learning. There have been few examples like Selena which he seems to think that people are trying to ride the deep learning wave to generate false buzz (and cash!) for themselves.
He does oppose Marcus' views, but he also knows neural nets are only one approach to differentiable programming. The term is confusing though. It should read like "linear programming" does, but people are not interpreting it that way.
Related: https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/921409820825178114?lang=en
I think LeCun doesn't want a repeat of AI winter because of exponentially rising hype and expectations out of Deep Learning. There have been few examples like Selena which he seems to think that people are trying to ride the deep learning wave to generate false buzz (and cash!) for themselves.