>Imagine trying to understand how a modern computer running a video game works, but all you understand is the basics of logic gates. Sure, in principal you could understand what’s going on in terms of bit flips, but it’s hopeless in practice.

See "Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?":

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...

(which is actually looking at transistor-level data, not gate-level, but the games examined are simple ones)