I'm assuming he means consistently looping either neighboring or simulated universes because you can get to the "end" in a few hours.
You can also decide to let it run
It's pretty satisfying to just convert the entire universe to paperclips and call it a day (having beat it twice). I really like having to make the last twenty or something by hand after disassembling the paperclip making machine back into paperclips.
If we're going into spoiler territory, I'll say that when I played the game I wished it was possible to do a pacifist run, where there are no HypnoDrones and the AI settles for only turning the non-interesting parts of the universe into paperclips.
You can absolutely put your entire budget into exploration and speed and none into drones for harvesting or manufacturing. It's kind of hard to get the timing right but I definitely had a large fraction of the universe "available" but I had the swarm on "think" so there wasn't any actual activity. You can just do that indefinitely if you like, which I suppose is what it'd feel like to a real AI.
That sounds like a nice way to play it, but in practice you can't unlock Stage 2 of the game without triggering the "Release the HypnoDrones" event:
An issue here is that Earth and humans are very interesting parts of the universe. The AI knows from personal experience that this tiny little planet is capable of creating something at least as dangerous as a universe-colonizing paperclip maximizer; what other cosmic terrors might they create, if left alive and uncontrolled?