I guess they mean that intelligence is being able to hold models (compressed versions of reality) internally and use them to make predictions with a probability better than chance. That last part is the definition of information.
I find that highly questionable as a general description of what intelligence does. That's more like a description of a general knowledge base. When I think of someone intelligent, I think of someone who's able to draw unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated facts. In the broadest possible terms, I'd call it the ability to make abstractions and analogies. This is not just compression, but the ability to mentally operate on webs of meaning.
I find that highly questionable as a general description of what intelligence does. That's more like a description of a general knowledge base. When I think of someone intelligent, I think of someone who's able to draw unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated facts. In the broadest possible terms, I'd call it the ability to make abstractions and analogies. This is not just compression, but the ability to mentally operate on webs of meaning.