1. GPS doesn't "ping" multiple satellites. It's the other way around. Multiple satellites are constantly transmitting their times, and any receiver can listen in and figure out their location based on that.
2. regardless of how much technology/research went into developing the GPS, it's still fairly simple to access from a software point of view. A CPU may have millions/billions of transistors that are intricately placed, but that doesn't mean using your CPU to add two numbers can't be described as "simple".
You probably have a supercomputer in your pocket. Self driving cars have started service around me. Engineering builds on its own success and many techniques/solutions get standardized and commoditized. Today’s hard is tomorrow’s simple (and conversely yesterday’s simple can become today’s hard as techniques are forgotten or we lose old ways of doing things).
Excuse me, but when did pinging multiple satellites thousands of kilometres away (in orbit) become simple?