This workshop brought together several distinguished researchers who represented different lines of research. The following were discussed: A general mathematical theory of the complexity of neural network models (seen as a particular case of automata networks), the relevance of automata networks to theoretical biology, the statistical mechanical approach to neural networks, multilayer and back-propagation models in artificial intelligence, the complexity of real neural networks, the relevance of ultrametricity (a concept arisen in spin glass theory), statistical mechanical models of the origin of life and a dynamical model exhibiting a new route to chaos.