A glider isn't a cycle. It translates itself. A glider gun isn't a cycle either, since it creates arbitrarily many gliders. So I think that it's possible not to end in a cycle in interesting ways as well.
On a higher level, since Life is Turing-complete, it's perfectly possible that the game state ends in an infinite computation of Pi to higher and higher precision, and never repeats as a result (or, you know, anything else could happen).
But GoL on a finite board has only finitely many possible states, and must therefore end up in a cycle.
Conway’s Game of Life is Turing-complete. Therefore, it is possible to create an AI in it. If you created a 3^^3 by 3^^3 Life board, setting the initial state at random, presumably somewhere an AI would be created. Would this AI somehow take over the whole game board, if given enough time?
Would this be visible from the top, as it were?
EDIT: I probably meant 3^^^3, sorry. Also, by generating at random, I meant 50% chance on. But any other chance would work too, I suspect.