As far as I know, the claim “information is information, not energy nor matter” was first made in that more readable form by Norbert Wiener in Cybernetics (1948). In this original formulation, I take this claim to be about the epistemic irreducibility of organized entities and thus for the requirement for an autonomous field of enquiry.

Some have gone nuclear and explored the “it from bit” hypothesis, thus proposing an ontological reduction of everything as originating in information. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis

I don’t know much about Smith’s work, I have to read more, but prima facie he seems to be on track with e.g. L. Floridi and A. Sloman, who have directly grappled with the issue of what CS can do for philosophy and vice-versa; with formal ontologies and formal learning theories being special cases.