  I discuss ab initio predictions for light and intermediate-mass nuclei as
well as nuclear matter. Problems and open issues are outlined and an attempt is
made to relate them to specific deficiencies of the chiral two- and
many-nucleon forces currently in use. In particular, I identify the softness of
the NN potential (due to non-locality) as one important factor for the
improvement of microscopic predictions. This finding is very much in tune with
the recent investigation by Lu et al. (arXiv:1812.10928) where---within a
simple, but realistic model---it is shown that proper nuclear matter saturation
requires a considerable amout of non-locality in the NN interaction.
