The combination of autonomous robots, artificial intelligence and the internet of things offers immense possibilities to improve healthcare and assistance in daily living activities. Human-robot interaction in this context poses very demanding research challenges to ensure reliable and situated communication, as well as compliance with the strict physical contact requirements involved, for example, in helping users to dress or feed. These assistive tasks require dexterous manipulation skills, which need to be easily taught to robots by non-experts, as well as customized according to user needs and preferences. In addition, such skills must be intrinsically safe to people, adaptable to changing conditions, and able to handle deformable materials like clothing. Some results of projects addressing these challenges, such as CLOTHILDE and SOCRATES, will be described. Assistive AI raises also fundamental ethical issues, many practical ones stemming from algorithmic decision-making conflicting with human freedom and dignity. Several institutions are developing regulations and standards, and many ethics education initiatives include contents on human-machine interaction and human dignity in assistive situations. In the talk, free materials to teach a university course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI, based on the appeal of science fiction narrative, will be presented.